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Unintelligent Design
An hour a day,
sometimes more,
I chipped away
with mallet and chisel
on a block of marble
I found in Carrara
and shipped to New York
on the deck of a trawler.
I offered the marble
to a famous sculptor
who told me he works
in granite only
so I grabbed his beret
and one of his smocks
and said I'd sculpt
the block myself
with whittling skills
picked up as a kid
from a drunken uncle
named Whittling Sid.
Several weeks later,
to my surprise,
I finished the bust
of a chimpanzee
simply by wielding
mallet and chisel
the way I wield
pencil and eraser
when hewing a poem.
Working with marble
or working with words,
a sculptor or poet
proves less is more
by chipping away
until something emerges
upright and walking
with a soul of its own.
poem by Donal Mahoney
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Sound of Silence
I’m walking down the street
and I hear the sculptor in his house
working on his statue of Krishna
and the chisel rings out on the stone
like a bell that wants to tell you something:
the stone saying, I am perfectly made for this;
the chisel saying, I am perfectly made for this;
the sculptor saying, this is prayer;
Krishna saying, I shall enter this.
And I hear in the sound of the chisel on the stone,
as sure as I know my own name,
that the sculptor is listening to all this too.
The bell-like sound lingers in the air
as if the air would keep it for ever
as the air’s prayer. It’s music.
The clearer the sound
of his striking chisel on stone,
the deeper the silence
as if sound and silence between them
know a secret: that sounds like this
can do anything in the world;
even call Krishna with their music
to play at being stone for us.
The stone’s laughing also:
playing at being Krishna.
They’re both laughing.
The sculptor is smiling too.
poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Two Deep Silences..
Two deep Silences-
One, of meditative Sculptor
Other, of the Boulder
In timeless penance
Melt in intense passion
Through rhythmic jingles
Of dancing chisel.
A marvellous Beauty
After months of
Labour pains
Is born
Out of its womb!
O! is it the dream
Of damsel rock?
Or, is it Full Moon
Churned out of
Two silences
By sharp clinks
Of cute chisel?
poem by Sundaram Chandrakalaadhar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.
quote by Michelangelo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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War is a bad chisel with which to curve out tomorrow.
Yourself you shape
Yourself the stone
Yourself the sculptor
Yourself the chisel
Yourself you shape
poem by Bashyam Narayanan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Get Them Booted
Boot those blues,
You are too quick to slip on.
Like a pair of comforting shoes.
You choose to wear,
With a careless attitude.
And despairing to keep,
Your relief unreleased.
Clipping coupons may ease,
A setback to fill the void...
Of feeling trapped,
Lifeless.
With happiness scratched,
Off of your top ten list of priorities.
As if sadness is your chore.
Get yourself together.
Protect from stormy weather!
Boot those blues,
You are too quick to slip on.
Like a pair of comforting shoes.
You choose to wear,
With a careless attitude.
And despairing to keep,
Your relief unreleased.
Get yourself together.
Protect from stormy weather!
And chisel obstacles that come to stand in your way.
Don't you let them in your life parade.
Get yourself together.
Protect from stormy weather!
And chisel obstacles that come to stand in your way.
Don't you let them in your life parade.
Get them booted,
Don't let them root.
Get yourself together.
Protect from stormy weather!
And chisel obstacles that come to stand in your way.
Don't you let them in your life parade.
Get them booted,
Don't let them root.
Get them booted,
You can do this if you choose.
Get them booted,
Only you can pick and choose 'your' good news.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Brick Layer
Menacing thoughts invade this good
I thought I was cured.
Guess I missed the double blink,
of deceptions, 'sure'
Pessimist gesture from television,
I thought I changed the channel.
Guess its karma paying a visit,
infecting my precious cable.
Concrete legs and gravel hands,
is this my true reflection?
Sanities chisel above my head,
brick layer bows laughing.
His mixture hidden, outside relief,
a close friend supplies him.
A friend that tends to all his needs,
brick layers defensive.
This house almost completed,
my will grows weak,
brick layer's drive
thrives in me.
Karma on the television,
what else am I to do,
guess I'll watch an episode,
of 'what not to do'
Brick layer fetches his mixture,
from close friend, conscience.
Gives him state of mind in return
to keep me from asking.
In the confines of the basement,
with a television possessed,
I kneel on my concrete knees
and crawl towards the steps.
Beneath unfinished ceiling,
I see an opening.
Sanities chisel dangles,
left unattended.
Pushing myself up,
with heavy, gravel hands,
I grab the chisel brick layer left,
his king now in check.
Listening for a silence above,
holding breath within,
Brick layer is oblivious,
to his chisel breaking skin.
Cracking the concrete and gravel casts,
I stand on weary feet.
Regain my balance and dust my limbs,
of brick layers defeat.
Down the stairs, now at the door,
brick layer is frantic.
Deprived of purpose, and will to constraint,
his motives are desperate.
Laying his bricks in attempts to withhold me,
he knows it's his death.
His chisel, his king
betrays him once more,
and breaks his coward back.
No longer do I live below,
in the basement of mind.
A new occupant, now makes his home
in the basement, confined.
Brick layer can be heard at times,
yelling at the television.
Karma's reruns seem to bother,
any hopes of redemption.
poem by Mathieu Hotte
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A disease and its treatment can be a series of humiliations, a chisel for humility.
quote by Laurel Lee
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
quote by Samuel Butler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.
quote by William C. Bryant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Chisel Hill
Misty eyes on a misty day
Come across a place like this along your way
You walk straight in to that sweet and tender trap
And you know youre lost and found
And there aint no going back
Spend the rest of your days playing all the hardest games
Just to get back to that place again
And memories oh how they stick to you
You know there aint a thing, not a single thing you can do
On chisel hill
Ive been ten thousand miles from this place and seen it I swear
Ive woke up happy thinking that I was there
Its the place I love, its where I wanna be
And I wont give up until I get to see
A little something in there to call my own
Pass the time of day and head off home
The evening shadows on the dry stone walls
The night draws in and the ale house calls
And happy I will be
When the road goes no further than what I see
When past here its nowhere to go
And I aint gonna give up until I get see
Those angel eyes looking up at me
The prince of peace and time is standing still
On chisel hill
song performed by by Chris Rea
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When The Sky Splits
Lightning strikes the ground
Boom Crash Crack
Thunder cracks the sky into two
Its only me and you
Alone with the sky splitting
I want it to stop
I need it to stop
You are powerless to stop the storm
But you make it better
You are all the difference
when the sky splits in two
With you there the splitting sky does not bother me
I know its there but it doesn't bother me
Its only me and you when the sky splits
poem by Jimmy Hoffa
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My Treasures
These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,
Where all my tin soldiers are lying at rest,
Were gathered in Autumn by nursie and me
In a wood with a well by the side of the sea.
This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!)
By the side of a field at the end of the grounds.
Of a branch of a plane, with a knife of my own,
It was nursie who made it, and nursie alone!
The stone, with the white and the yellow and grey,
We discovered I cannot tell HOW far away;
And I carried it back although weary and cold,
For though father denies it, I'm sure it is gold.
But of all my treasures the last is the king,
For there's very few children possess such a thing;
And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,
Which a man who was really a carpenter made.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Faust: What wilt from me, Base Spirit, say? Brass, marble, parchment, paper, clay? The terms with graver, quill, or chisel, stated? I freely leave the choice to thee.
line from Faust by Goethe (1808), translated by Bayard Taylor
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Franklin Jones
If I could have lived another year
I could have finished my flying machine,
And become rich and famous.
Hence it is fitting the workman
Who tried to chisel a dove for me
Made it look more like a chicken.
For what is it all but being hatched,
And running about the yard,
To the day of the block?
Save that a man has an angel's brain,
And sees the ax from the first!
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Wings
to Constantin Brâncuşi
The bird of time
unfolds in the song of the chisel,
rotates in the light of stone stars,
renouncing his stillness:
Look at the sky, the sky is alive!
It has wings in the name of the one who shaped them.
poem by Camelia Oprița from The word opens the human thought - Sfântul Ierarh Nicolae (2019), translated by Camelia Oprița
Submitted by Alexander
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A Pound Super-glued (Fun Poem 49)
I once had a friend
who super-glued a pound
to the pavement outside his home.
He wanted to see
how many people would bend over
to try to pick up the coin.
He racked up a score
of twenty people or more
until one bright spark came back
with a hammer and chisel
and he got it up.
poem by David Harris
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Factory Smokestacks At Dawn
They chisel their force into the dawning sky.
They forge their steeled selves on the precipice.
They split through the fog like axes
so that each breath shatters around them.
Morning announces itself with purple laughter.
The sky floods deep blue.
They keep watch,
barbed and shaven and grey,
naked there and as lost
in the ether. God is born.
poem by Ernst Toller
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