“Just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.”
– Jim Harrison
I’ve got this
ball-peen hammer,
damnedest thing –
Let’s me pound out
tin sheets of stars and love,
bend life into different shapes
Dimple and soften
faces
that were hard as steel
Beat time and space
to the round music
of the spheres
But does each
tiny blow
leave a bruise
Like that ping when a grape
gives way
to wine
Or is it just me again,
all thumbs
and curses
qbit 
Ooo – nice! Images of a kid with toys unaware of doing damage or of grand creation. The final two stanzas are excellent; the metaphor of the grape/wine and then that universal feeling of just making messes. This is outstanding! (and a nob to the ball-peen hammer resurfacing!)
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Thanks!! Yeah, needed to claim that hammer as my own. Also your poem where it was raining wine gave me the bursting grapes.
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Hmmm – not sure why I’m showing up as Anonymous. Guess I need to add my credentials below, but that comment above is me. ~Jilly 🙂
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Noticed that. Did you get my response?
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I did and it left me wondering how you knew the comment was me – cue Rod Serling.
Glad the grape reference kicked something for you. There is so much consistency in your poetic voice – do you feel that happening?
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Lessee — because any random person on the internet would say “the ball-peen hammer resurfacing”. LOL!
Funny you should say what you did. I gave the poem to Connie before I posted it, and she said “This is so completely you. And all your recent writing has felt like that. You are sounding like you more and more of the time”
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…and she remains a terrific poet as well as a keen reader of.
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Classic qbit! Everybody else took the prompt and went off on some radial, right or left, up or down. You transported to another dimension.
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Thanks! Harrison has been great for that. No idea which way the hammer is going to fall!
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🙂
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Ok, I like this, there’s a wryness to it that I find very appealing. I have no idea what a ball peen hammer is. I’m guessing it’s a very specific kind of hammer? I like the imagery very much, and that ending is great. I read it as being about those unintended consequences, and the impact that manipulating the world has on us as people.
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Thanks. Had fun with this. (Well, having fun with all of them!)
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Great imagery and an ending with a thud!
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LOL! Ow!
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empathy in tin with a bruising ending – I think you have one of those “ball-peen hammer,
damnedest thing” things to write so uniquely with
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Thank you!! Damnedest thing!
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Love, ‘ pound out tin sheets of stars and love.’ Excellent poem,q!
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Thank you so much!
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