Best Chimney Poems
My precious chimney swift
Envy alone
Has named you so mundane
Tethered to the slightest pause
Amid your life upon the wing
Describing you as drab
Cigar shaped
And flying like a bat
While within me
Your beauty burns
And I thank you so for that
For from my human complications
The conditions of my sin
You do so delightfully
Delightfully distract.
In days gone by, people said the pipe cleaner
or the black wandering man
with shackles and dirty brushes
When he arrived at the house
in Grand Street number seventeen
A small boy opened the door
He stood wide-eyed
and measuring the big black-clad scary man
who smiled with unusually white teeth in a dirty face
Chains and brushes forged from steel he wore
"Hi, do you remember me from last year ?"
"No, the boy said
but the priest has told a lot about you
on Sundays at the church"
Santa's stuck inside my chimney this year
His tummy's too big and so is his rear
I saw him hanging there
I'm filled with despair
Because on my roof are his eight reindeer
Rudolph's shiny red nose is much too bright
And it continues to blink through the night
It glows in my window
While Santa cries, "No, No No!"
They're both driving me nuts. It is my plight
Three days in and Santa's become smelly
No food should've slenderized his belly
No hearth fire can I burn
You'd think Santa would learn
To stay away from the North Pole Deli!
Finally, skinny enough to slip through
He quickly asked, "Where the heck is your loo?"
I pointed to the door
His pants dropped to the floor
I held my nose from the yucky stench... EWWW
I washed his suit until it was soot free
He thanked me for my hospitality
I had something for him
A gift card to a gym
What a weird Christmas it had been for me
There's one important thing I've left to do
Clear my backyard of all the reindeer poo
Four days worth of their s - - t
Made my yard a cess pit
I should've called a hazardous waste crew
I sent a letter north to tell Mrs. Claus
Why there were dark brown stains in Santa's drawers
I thought she should know
That when he had to go
Stuck in my chimney, chubbiness the cause
Woodsmoke
Sweet, resin pine
Rising, drifting, curling
Comforting warm chimney fragrance
Autumn.
What escapes from your chimney reveals the contents of your heart,
Whether borne of Love or not, of which, your smoke will impart.
If Love is present, living, within your beating heart,
Puffs of pleasant, sweet smoke from your chimney will depart.
But... with a heart void of Love, where darkness upon drapes,
From its chimney can only be black smoke that escapes.
A heart filled with Love is a heart always free,
Where darkness can't prevail nor shackled, make it be.
Do check your chimney often for the contents of your smoke.
If dark clouds you are puffing, your heart may then be broke.
A heart that bears no Love, is a heart not working well
For the heart is designated as the place for Love to dwell.
One's appearance may be drab, unattractive to the sight,
But if the smoke is pleasant, sweet, then the place within's alright.
Or one's appearance may have beauty; with a tune of a sweet, inviting song,
But if they're puffing black smoke, then there is something wrong.
But no need to be disheartened, for hope, there always is,
When Love's invited into a heart, Love brings along too, bliss.
Once one's heart is exposed to Love and all its Magic,
Their former heart of darkness will be no longer sad and tragic.
As the heart fills with Love, the once Chimney Smoke of black
Will change to pleasant, sweeter puffs, escaping from the stack.
Your Chimney Smoke tells the tale, provides the true rendition,
Speaks truthfully of your character and about your heart's condition.
Written by Artsieladie/Sharon Donnelly
©2016-01-29 03:07:00 (EST)
All rights reserved.
I’ve come back to the place where I had grown,
a place no more as it once was known.
Not a roof, not a room, not one wall left,
just an old, weathered chimney standing alone.
An ill-tempered wind swept from the hillside tops
that spun relentlessly through the leafless copse
and across fallow fields long now disused
that once had yielded sustaining crops.
The skies oblique with murmurations
of small black birds that, without hesitation,
alit, then rose in tornadic swirls
of airborne dances without cessation.
A tractor sat solemnly by a clattering gate
now a rusted reminder that time won't wait.
And the path that wound to the moldering shed
overrun with thistles that sealed its fate.
And where once stood the old front door
now just a cracked and crumbled floor.
Then, as I turned and faced the chimney tall,
familiar voices resonated once more.
Though perceived, still filled with laughter
and childlike questions of timeless matter
from a once-close family about the hearth
brought a blissful end to life’s daily chapter.
I stood silently, my senses sublimely allured,
while present time was much obscured;
my melancholic thoughts embraced
those voices from the hearth I heard.
Then, all illusions gone, the chimney tall
seemed out of place without a wall,
without a family ‘round it girthed,
a silent sentinel that should never fall.
I turned and walked, my thoughts unspoken,
and knew well now the chains were broken;
but though the chimney, which stood unscathed,
meant nothing more than memory’s token.
John Henry Gardner
© 2017 – All rights reserved
The chimney now stands alone
Without the home that was filled with love
A relic of what once had been gone
All the children left for places unkown
Father left many years ago for above
The chimney now stands alone
It once radiated warmth from its stones
As mother cooked meals unconceived of
A relic of what once had been gone
The chimney now stands alone
Once it glowed with warmth that was made use of
Family gathered around, sweet potatoes thrown
In the ashes and coals, now the family is unknown
They're gone to different parts of the world, deprived of
A relic of what once had been gone
Children studied lessons once by the flame
Now no one even knows any of their names
The chimney now stands alone
A relic of what once had been gone
Santa was not having very good luck
While in a chimney his mask became stuck
He hollered and tried to yell
But it was muffled and fell
Then had to chew his mask free full of guck
12/07/2020
Contest: Santa's Covid Christmas Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Carolyn DevonShire
Syllable counts 10, 10, 7, 7, 10
This is based on a story about David 'Deacon' Brown The Open Golf Champion of 1886 at
Musselburgh, Scotland.
Davy wis a genius
at climbin' up an' doon.
A chimney sweep o' sure repute
frae Musselburgh Toon.
He won The British Open
in 1886;
Ah'm share awbody whae wis there
thocht it wis a fix!
The Championship Officials
had a player oot o' sync.,
So they thocht o' 'Deacon' Broon,
A player whae'd played the Links.
They fund him up a chimney,
Cleanin' oot the Lum.
They washed him an' they claithed him
An' filled his achin' tum.
The course wis fu' o' champions
linin' up that day.
'Deacon' mumbled tae hissel',
"Weel ah'm jist here tae play!"
He played his gowf wi' panache
an' beat them at their game:
"Ah'm the world's best chimney sweep
an' that is NOO, ma claim tae fame!"
Copyright Robert Cartwright-Davidson February 2009
Scabby knees and chimney stack smoke
Scabby knees and chimney stack smoke,
Short corduroy trousers, old flat cap bloke.
Wash lines of linen hang over cobbled street,
Holes in our shoes, dirty cold callous feet.
Make do and mend, hand me down clothes,
Ruddy dirt faces with candlewick nose.
Life much simpler in those days back then,
Times were hard for adolescent men.
Hard to believe this was in my lifetime,
I long to return to Bleak house and grime.
Written 27.9.18 for Silent One's contest
"What it was like back then"
Santa got stuck in a narrow long chimney.
Struggled, wiggled for hours to get himself free!
He let out a Loud blast!
Landed on his Big Ass!
His reindeer were laughing Hysterically!
Michael Tor
A chimney on a low rise standing sentinel
On the loosely scattered outskirts of town.
A reminder of an old house built by hand,
The home around the hearth long fallen down.
The silvery frost covering the remnants
Of the old broken place spilled on the ground,
No room hereabouts for cheap sentiment,
It’s bleached broken bones now earthward bound.
Wandering through someone else’s ruins
My imagination starts to take hold.
Discovering relics from times long since past,
Anonymous, broken, rusted and old.
I spy a grand old wood fired oven’s legs
Sprawled akimbo all four across the floor.
With its door ajar and enamel cracked,
It’ll provide them warmth and food no more.
The floorboards cling to the twisted bearers,
Bleached pine timbers cracked, warped and twisted.
Only wind swept and no longer mopped with pride,
Their gaps now hide rabbits no longer hunted.
Amongst the wooden wreckage lay scattered
Shards of brilliant and broken lead stained glass.
Elegant reminders of another time
when no-one thought this would come to pass.
A time when the front door was always open
And the pine rafters inside rang with life.
When a family filled the space with laughter
And gathered at the hearth in times of strife.
A battered and blackened iron pot upturned,
Rusted holes, cracked and weathered through.
It’ll never again be used to boil up
A feed of mouth watering mutton stew.
Handles, hinges, bolts and rusty nails too,
Lay in abandonment across the grounds.
The daffodils, jonquils and geraniums,
Now foreign to the garden’s new surrounds.
An aching head betrays a tired sadness
At forgotten scenes of decay and neglect.
Ignorant passers by cause me to wince,
As on this families history I reflect.
This one too from our sight they’ll soon remove
As progresses heavy capped boots march in.
The suburbs swallowing up our old farms,
As new histories in new houses begin.
I’ve come across many such sites of times past
As around the back blocks I’ve wandered.
If your eyes were open you’ll have seen them,
But do you care for our heritage squandered?
There once was a boy called Kye
Who liked to get ever so high
So he climbed to the top
Of the big chimney pot
Then jumped as he thought he could fly!
flying all day long
feeds entirely on insects...
fast-flittering flocks
SECOND PLACE WINNER
written March 14, 2022
for "Bird Haiku" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Tania Kitchin
5-7-5 syllables checked with HMS
It looks dilapidated and alone
On luscious greenland
All that is left is a brick chimney
Of a house once so grand
Bricks laid hundreds of years ago
Now lay scattered on the ground
Yet the chimney still stands strong and proud
With fallen house remnants all around
Such raw beauty is that old chimney
From a once beloved home
Memories and that old chimney
Is all that lives there now silent and alone!