Best Chimneys Poems
Monet
Come with me, let us rekindle love –
walk with me over bridges aglow
while rivers magically glisten below.
If you hold my hand,
perhaps, we might spy a magpie
perched from a snowy sky and as night
stirs, then shifts from a full-swing soiree
into muted memories of still life,
I might fear darkness less
than when I am alone and adrift.
If you remember, the city lights
are more beautiful when it rains softly,
but a stormy night without you
takes me by surprise every time.
Tonight, let me be your Camille,
allow me to inspire the artist in you,
if for nothing more than conversation
or passionate admiration. You and I
can chase Pegasus, watch him gallop
across mystical skies in motion,
wings spanning our unabridged story
in unison till we flow into flaxen dawn
of illumination in golden-blues.
Are you only an impression of yesterday's
tearful adieu or more?
Without you, my melancholy song will rise
like smoke puffing from rooftop chimneys.
In an enlightened city, I hear music
from the spirited streets. It haunts me
and still intensifies my desire for love.
When you are gone, I can smile and even laugh
sometimes, but I cannot hide
the pale hues of sorrow in my eyes.
My Monet visions of sunrise awakened by
the warmth of your breath in whispers of morn
will dull to grays when again, you go away.
Tomorrow, I will be left to ponder
my worth, my suffering, my vulnerabilities,
all the colors of my world
while I chase shadows in the sun,
always searching for the perfect one –
a balance of light and dark,
of missing you too much and not enough.
Chase your dreams while I chase time,
infinite turmoil from a speared sky,
and days will remember to turn to night.
Even long after I die,
skies above us will dance in starlight
for someone else’s eyes. Until then,
the perfect shadow may be my own
next to yours, no matter the source of light.
But as I learn to pace footsteps alone,
reaching from a canvas brushed in strokes
of my own light, like stars,
I am loving you from afar.
Written 7/19/20
T’was flair from the cobbles that drove the loom
with forced hardy sweat they laboured till eve
a family tradition from the womb
with threaded shuttle and reed hook they weave.
The warp the weft that nurtured the blending
the clatter the din the need of lip sync
a marriage of yarns a pattern pending
the huff and the puff with no time to blink.
This place the cornerstone belonged one’s life
town mill chimneys stretching into the clouds
the smog the fog to cut through with a knife
one pence to pay if late due to the crowds.
While in the countryside the manor house
no longer ‘His Grace’ but master with nous.
© Harry J Horsman 2018
Standing looking across sweeping thoughts and hopes
alone crying into distant faraway hills and valleys
dreaming I saw before me a big white puff of smoke
Drifting low circling from out of chimneys pots high
slowly moving creeps inner vision dancing with me
candy floss happily towards the glen sweet aroma scent
Scenting turf fires the nostrils with wild scent upon air as
a sun melting her warm fingers into one's back soothing
pure in a baby blue clear sky setting, rising high feelings
Upon a cool caressing Autumn breeze Mother Nature
arrives with songbirds singing sweet clearly with echoes
and most beautiful tunes carried ever so gently in the air
Within a quite stillness silently whispers gasp and cry
splitting down the middle a teardrop falls always slowly
in love with this forever dream, and to the end sighs
Standing on the edge of a pretty crystal cool blue pond
while watching the presence of beautiful fairy elves
and their most wonderful laughs and smiles so ever true
Smelling the wonderful aroma of pure mountain air
with that assured feeling the all is fresh, crisp, real
and flowers, plants, and grass talking to one another
Dreaming many perfect dreams of mermaids sitting
grouped in a green water pool at the waterfall’s edge
and sensing their joy, beauty, laughter, and smiles
This is what dreams are made of as we sense and see
most wondrous things and objects of perfect symmetry
as we feel mountain rain and a most delicious soft wind
Mother Nature and her magical world of treasures and
such beauty indeed make all gods of centuries past and
present stand up and applaud graciously our Dreaming One
Gary Bateman and Liam McDaid – A Collaborated Poem,
Copyright © All Rights Reserved (November 20, 2014)
(Terza Rima in Unrhymed Tercet poetic format)
land of lost shadows
and unweathered skies
five urban colours
through unflinching eyes
tall distant chimneys
and schoolyards at play
smoke drifting sideways
in stillness each day
sketches on packets
of stained cigarettes
strange brooding faces
and marionettes
people bent walking
with heads looking down
- if lowry was living
he'd have painted my town.
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
Mahatma Gandhi
___________________________________________
Winter is a suitable time to savor,
Silent, quite starving for, my only flavor.
Quiet seclusion enhances my languish,
Providing pause, meditation, and favor.
Frozen days of chilly nip raise my anguish,
Apply comfy sheets, light for cold to vanquish.
A dreadful bulk of cloud and a brisk breeze,
Inspire sloth in a book respite, prankish.
Beautifully arching shrubs and trees,
A ballet of nature's dreams and appease.
White feathers tumble to the soil below,
As sapphire shines, emerald first wheeze.
Fumes in chimneys coil, merge, and grow,
I burn a recollection as shadows undergo.
Crystal-clear river, frozen pearls, pristine,
Wind gusts at dusk in a cold stream flow.
It's peaceful in my heart and serene,
And mesmerized by the gorgeous scene.
Calm and eased by the stark lightness.
Winter is when I languish, purify, and shrine.
Indigo optimism overlays placid rightness,
Potent nature pride ethereal brightness.
A lovely mix of purple haze made it lighter,
Insignia aesthetic—only ebbing politeness.
when industry
stood on this soil
with chimneys that
spewed sweat and toil
the furnace fires
relied on mines
through arteries
of railway lines.
now looking back
to charcoal skies
through rosy mists
of childhood eyes
a line of trucks
each filled with rocks
crawled slowly past
a signal box.
the building formed
a silhouette
that framed a scene
I wont forget:
the dying of
that worldly light
was captured there
in black and white.
I'm standing now
where true art stood:
in a 'reinvented'
neighbourhood
where sleepers sleep
beneath the grass
where once those engines
used to pass.
What's up with Santa
Chimneys not swept Santa isn't happy
He is sick of the soot making him snappy
Families have lost the one thing that gives a room soul
A roaring fire of wood or coal
Toasting your toes as well as the bread
Held in front of the coals which are glowing red
Back to Santa who is beginning to stumble
No longer mince pies, sometimes fruit crumble
The tot of whisky has become a shot and Fanta
The reindeers are fed up, with a drunk Santa.
Talking of striking which isn't pleasant
A Xmas morn without any presents
All because Santa can't say no to the offings
Quaffing the goodies that are left out for him
So come you Mam's and Dad this is the test
Chimneys clean a mince pie and tot is best
Children will wake up to a happy morn
Celebrate the day a baby boy was born.
Reindeers will be happy too, that's nice
So will the elves and the live in mice
Happy Xmas Santa, once more you have survived
Delivered the parcels and kept tradition alive
Left me a sackful that's kind of lumpy
Opened to find a red eyed Santa that's grumpy
So night night Santa time for a snooze
Remember next year to keep off the booze
Penned 22 November 2014
Elephants ran
from the perilous sounds
the bakery overcooked the days bread
winter tires
installed on the wheelchairs
soldiers in a line to eat cakes
bread was in short supply
monsters on break, or strike
clouds dipped to human eyes
blinding all with hope
if a grave misses a few flowers?
what does it matter?
chimneys have no smoke
wineries have no grapes
lovers lost all grace
when rain falls
words become wet
like feet caressing the sand
I have a photo?
would you understand?
Fall fell in and flat lined Summer’s promiscuous pulse.
“You’ve had your play now go: enough of your insults.
You sent your disastrous rain where it wasn’t needed,
And where it was, cries for your moisture went unheeded.
Get behind me and go. Earth’s inhabitants need rest.
They need quiet and beauty, and I can do that best.
Coolness and crisp color is called for; rustling leaves.
The smell of newly harvested corn in the fresh breeze,
Smashed glass stars in a cold clear black sky,
Thin lines of smoke from chimneys rising high.
They need my beauty and rest before winter’s weary, white,
to build again strength, and joi de vivre 'ere the frozen night."
In loving warm tenderness
outside crystalised dew
reflecting rainbow colors shine
shining frosted glitter sparkling love
beautiful upon the ground
Looking towards a blue sky
brushed with pearl white clouds
Dreaming in a plane's vapor trail
destiny calling within a path
golden sun warm smiles touching deep
mixed with bird songs magic appears
A fresh cool December breeze blowing
caressing the brow, thoughts baby
whispering winds sings out in one union
rising up from the chimneys, smoke signals
Silver dancing wisps in warm turf fire
trailing down the valley
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
There’s a player up there
stomach resting on his chair
blowing air
through at least a hundred feet of twisted golden tubing
and
A man putting oil on a slide
makes toothy talk aside
to a skinny tuba player (imagine a tuba player being skinny)
who takes the fat horn on his lap
Drummers four all stand
Testing skins and whatnot with their hands
The first selection using such collection?
NOISY indeed!
Then there are the winds
All in a row with chimneys on the end
sucking for dear life it would seem
the flutist (or is it flautist?) is a dream
Finally the violins
adjusting gadgets rooting with their chins
cellos (big violins) screw into the floor
basses (huge violins) as a rule sit astool
Here comes a fiddler late
must have had a heavy date
of all the nerve he turns and bows
then sits that’s more than law allows
for
Here comes the conductor with a stick!
Mist evolves down the hillside into the vale
Where the farmhouses sit all put together
There’s no sense of wind here, there’s no bit of gale
Just one leery breeze that blends with the other
The houses confine themselves within the shade
And warmth flows there inside the chimneys conveyed
Where some sides of the buildings glisten in light
Sparkles with joy from now until the broad night
It is early morning, fires are still aglow
Burned all night with wood stored in the wicker trug
Sparks, spitting out making a huge firework show
A carefully placed guard to save the rag rug.
Mam is stirring the porridge, a lovely sight
Papa’s gone to the byre, check cows are alright
Daybreak is here, the children need to awake
Breakfast, then the long trek to school they must take
Within the boundaries so warm and cozy
The sights of any day of enlightenment
No matter day or night the valley I see
Complete, whole and surely full of contentment
Around the kitchen table they had sat this night
Mam with her sewing, Papa smiling at the sight
Children asleep tucked up in their gossamer down
In this idyllic place, the valley they call home
A Collaboration between Russell Sivey and Seren Roberts
‘Twas close to the day when Buba Claus,
His red nose and Bowie knife shining,
Would be off to fill the manly's hearths,
With bacon for their frying.
The ground was bare of snow or ice,
The sky was clear of reindeer.
But Buba Claus was loading his sleigh,
Real high, with good stout Yule beer?
Buba Claus was out in force,
His NRA cronies in tow,
To fill naughty radicals stockings,
With tiny bits of coal.
Cigars dangled from their lips,
A spittoon he placed by their feet,
And, before the sleigh rose off the ground;
They tossed in another side of beef.
Each carnivore, they laughingly swore;
Would have their fill this year,
And Bambi blanched as He flew by,
While Teddy Bears ran in fear!
Over New Canaan His courses flew,
Past the homes of vegetarians;
And down their chimneys they did toss;
The views of Libertarians!
And when the last haunch was placed,
Upon the spits of the mighty,
His spat his cud of gnarly gum,
Into the spittoon real tidy!
Then he flew off with a Ho, Ho, Ho,
And, not the ones for plowing
Cause Buba Claus had his own ideas
Of all Santa’s sissy endowings!
The ground rumbles, ominously, I'm on the steep side of a Mississippi River Bluff, mid-August, gathering bursting crimson red trophies of Staghorn Sumac for my favorite sumac-ade, a spright, invigorating tonic I enjoy this time of year. The smell in the air, forest-sage beginning to dry and ripen, the bitter tang of scattered paper-birch bark chimneys...must keep alert for the origins of the earthly rumble.
The unsettled earth, sweet and bitter smells...mix with my age and I sit down as if in a trance and drift asleep...harkening back to my training as a young man in a Manhattan Bagel Deli, assembling prep-stations for the customer onslaught about to descend. Proofed bagel dough, seeded and rotating in the elevator slate-shelved oven after a frothy malt-bath in the bubbling giant kettle, delectable aromas of fairly vibrating paper-sliced spiced meats and piquant aged cheeses, briny sheets of smoked lox, pots of sweetly acidic capers and luminous heirloom tomatoes...
But I'm much older now, my mind remembers, but my body can't function like it once did, I can't perform the once-easy configurations effortlessly like before.
The rumbling, just my imagination...
I awaken, gather my bunch of fluorescent sumac, which I am still able to concoct, mindful of God's Grace in my spiritual and physical evolution...He
Has Blessed me with.
8-13-20
6:03 am
‘Twas close to the day when Buba Claus,
His red nose and Bowie knife shining,
Would be off to fill the manly's hearths,
With bacon for their frying.
The ground was bare of snow or ice,
The sky was clear of reindeer.
But Buba Claus was loading his sleigh,
Real high, with good stout Yule beer?
Buba Claus was out in force,
His NRA cronies in tow,
To fill naughty radicals stockings,
With tiny bits of coal.
Cigars dangled from their lips,
A spittoon he placed by their feet,
And, before the sleigh rose off the ground;
They tossed in another side of beef.
Each carnivore, they laughingly swore;
Would have their fill this year,
And Bambi blanched as He flew by,
While Teddy Bears ran in fear!
Over New Canaan His courses flew,
Past the homes of vegetarians;
And down their chimneys they did toss;
The views of Libertarians!
And when the last haunch was placed,
Upon the spits of the mighty,
His spat his cud of gnarly gum,
Into the spittoon real tidy!
Then he flew off with a Ho, Ho, Ho,
And, not the ones for plowing
Cause Buba Claus had his own ideas
Of all Santa's sissy endowings!