Best Disused Poems
A tenebrous void occupies my soul
like a queasy, dark, wintry cloud
hanging low and heavy with sleet and frost.
No gelid wind blows it away
and I despair. I cannot forget the dead.
An empty, lonely chapel still beacons.
It stands alone
amongst the tall dark pines
of an abandoned forest.
Inside, the dim light filters poorly
through dirty broken stained glass.
There's nothing inside but dust.
No chairs, no pews
for the weary traveller.
I sit on the cold slab tomb,
wonder who was laid to rest
inside the sepulchre.
Then did I realise I was alive.
All memories stored deep inside me.
The waking of empathy
especially to the self, is painful.
How oft had I tried to erase
my thoughts on you?
I leave the disused chapel
and return to my empty home.
I still think of you.
It resembles the London Underground inside my messed up mind
With a network of confusion
And Tracks that twist and Wind
Tunnels full of darkness
stations now disused
I don’t know where I’m coming from or where I’m going to
terrorists detonate their bombs of devastating hate
My trains delayed
signals are down
and now again I’m late
The Homeless have all given up
Theres Drunks full up with booze
Lost souls decide to take that step
What have they got to loose?
The Pigeons flap
leaves on track
Tourist’s are trying to navigate maps
Feel the wind as the train pulls in
Reluctant for my trip to begin
Carriage is crowded, we’re packed like sardines
Music is blaring from head phones of teens
There’s too many sights, there’s too many sounds
There’s really no room now
commuters wear frowns
I want to get off
I can’t take anymore
I’m searching for the emergency door
But it’s moving too fast as the world wizzes by
Holding my breath as I try not to cry
Feelings Of Turmoil inside my brain
A maze of disorder
I’m clearly insane
I long to escape from this madness and fear
The tannoy comes on
my station is near
I pick up my pills from the box by my bed
Swallow two whole and I lay down my head
When Will this torture ever cease?
My breathing slows down
And I’m feeling at ease
I slowly drift back now into calm
floating free until my alarm
Old
Digger, lifter, mover, slicer
Friend of ScoopDog and Dugger Graves
Lover of landscaping, building, and gardening
Who feels less sharp, disused, and edgy
Who fears dull blades, broken handles, and rust
Who would like to see verdant gardens, straight fence posts, and freshly laid sod
Resident of the junk section on the old wood fence just outside the tool shed
Shovel
I often watched him tirelessly sifting
Grains of native corn in a rusty mill-
Those arms a kinetic flush, quicker than
July’s heat, as if glazed limestone rubbed
A wavy mane blown by summer’s tossed air :
Perhaps, I have imagined him laboring-
Muscular taut and bronzed by scorched hours
His gait languidly aloof fetching water
Across the pond, a lonesome vignette,
This image cast-off like a bag of disused husk
Far out behind, steep as the upturned leaves...
Eyes doleful flickering on late noon’s hardened toil.
While upon paddles, a man’s life seemed to rile
Where golden-rod turned to nickel's work,
That down old chutes rolled musky sweat of flesh:
I have beheld him amid dusk’s aftermath
Of sadness roaming there in faint overalls,
From his glimpses, the mill of pit and death
And each lily I clutched for him wilted, sagging-
For in my own aloneness, I dared not meet him.
Gristmill Contest for Craig Cornish
6/3/2018
When the woollen industry died,
the reservoir that fed the old mill,
became disused.
The water meadow at its head
became a swamp.
Developers,
who want to build houses everywhere,
take one look at the quagmire,
sniff the stench fouled air, and walk away.
The channels are long blocked.
The drains are long broken.
So a freed, unmanaged, unmanacled nature;
binges on the anarchy of liberation,
brewing a brackish broth of sweet stagnation.
Children are warned to stay away
from the deadly, dangerous, disease
ridden slough.
Lest the Knucker Dragon, swamp devil,
swallow them whole.
Bulrushes,
point brown accusing fingers to the sky,
blaming the heavens for their
muddied becoming and placement.
Blood worm larvae,
orphaned Fly Nymphs,
ravenous in the root and stem of grasses;
greedily gorge without discrimination,
where cannibal repast; is often a relation.
Herons, are shadows that pass over,
heading for the cleaner waters below.
Snipe scutter
in the soft mire, poking for grubs.
Busily burying beaks in the
flowering Bogbean, and Hogweed:
Yellow Flag Iris,
and Ragged Robin,
rampantly roar a rich cacophony of colour.
Beady eyed, scruffy small,
fat water vole.
Mining leerdammer labyrinths in the banks,
faring fine on favoured vegetation,
prosperously multiply in stinking habitation.
I know a lady who is 99 years aged
she will be 100 by winter
Every day she walks to the disused post office
- an hour each way
Eats, drinks healthily ...
and does all the housework herself
Even in the garden she is diligent
You should have seen her roses
In the evening she has a glass of port wine
and a piece of chocolate liqueur
It gives her a peaceful night's sleep
- without medicine
Let's melt down all the plastics that will not biodegrade
and form some giant ice floes to replace the ones God made
so Polar bears will have somewhere to sit and sleep and stand
instead of getting persecuted when they come inland.
Lets crush unwanted bottles down and grind them into ice-
like crystals, line the kerbs with them, hey that'd look quite nice,
a safety feature for the roads that aren't lit well at night
and visually cool rivers of car reflected light.
For all the stuff mankind discards that uglifies the land
the answer is an easy one, and really close to hand
compress it and then pack into flasks, all concrete lined
and stack it in the empty shafts of all the disused mines.
And in the meantime let's change attitude, and though it might seem rough
but if we were less greedy then we wouldn't stockpile stuff
the latest craze, the new gadget to keep up with your friends
not thinking when it's obsolete just where on Earth it ends
so let man learn a lesson from the stupid things he did
and give a fighting chance toward the future for our kids.
10th June 2015
For competition 'Stuff' sponsored by Thomas Martin
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
Life way back then when i was ten,
From wartime days, to peace again.
Few luxuries on ration books,
Not even scraps for feeding ducks.
But more important than our wealth,
To tend our needs the National Health.
As smoking chimneys mixed with fog,
Our lungs were filled with filthy smog.
Always hard up, no cash to spend,
My mum would say, make do and mend.
Bows and arrows, were once scrap wood,
We all took turns being Robin Hood.
Old pram wheels and packing cases,
Now soap box cars, for thrilling races.
In summertime, games in the park,
Promised my mum, home before dark.
Some orange juice with jam and bread,
Those poor little ducks, never got fed.
On sunny days we had picnics,
Saturdays our treat to watch the flicks.
In windy weather, flying our kites.
Our streets at night, lit by gaslights,
We raced pell-mell down helter skelters.
On top of disused air raid shelters.
Chumping wood for the Guy Fawkes fire,
Sundays, i sang descant, in the choir.
Wintertime rugby, for the school team,
Lots of energy, we let off steam.
Exam results were a big surprise,
Top of the class, winning first prize.
I haven't left my heart there,
My shock I can't disguise,
San Francisco wasn't what I expected,
Which has taken me by surprise.
Please don't get me wrong,
I'm happy that I've been,
Some of the sights I saw,
Were amazing to have seen.
There was Alcatraz Island,
Lombard Avenue too,
The Golden Gate Bridge,
To mention just a few.
The waterfront is alive,
With places to enjoy,
But there's a darker side,
My dreams they did destroy.
Some of the scenes I saw,
Actually, broke my heart,
Disused and dilapidated piers,
Left to perish and fall apart.
Down and outs,
In the open, sleeping rough,
How did life for them,
Become extremely tough?
One of the most horrendous sights,
Filled me with despair,
I saw addicts getting there fix,
In the street, just standing there.
I know this happens all over,
But it's not something I like to see,
Especially when San Francisco,
Was a dream come true for me.
It was the only dark point,
Of my trip, away,
I have so many special memories,
I will treasure them, every, single day.
A town wheezes the last rites over
its people through phlegm-ridden
lungs and turgid cankers.
Its blistered wounds are coated
in the mud that lines its harbour
and creeks.
The loss of the dockyards was its lowest tide.
Now, existing work taunts the town from
the other side of the harbour,
separated by low tides and disused ferries.
As the town slides closer to its knees,
the landlords willingly house
the subsidised washouts.
And gang fights marry into husband
and wife fights, twisted around petty
pride and sectarian bigotry.
Leaving kids to run about half-stoned
and roaring with cider, where the
unpredictable waits around the corner.
And rape happens behind the church,
under God's careful watch, where worship
of the needle leaves only emptied lives.
And lost souls sleep under cardboard palaces.
This is a town that wants them out, so that
it can shut the doors, draw the blinds
and start again.
The Disappearance
It was a hot afternoon when a big bulk carrier left a harbour
on the coast of Bengali bound for Sydney, Australia, with a cargo
of scrap iron of ships that once had ploughed the seas that had
a retreat for some and work for others.
Then the sea parted the ship fell into timeless zone where life
repeats itself the cook is making soup and the captain studies
a map of ocean currents and lived in the now.
150 years passed, a convulsion through the zone and the ship
was back on the sea surface again and the cook served his soup.
The captain called up the harbour authorities needed a birth for
a ship no one had heard of, but its manifest stated, Sydney,
they let the ship birth on a disused pier far from the city to
the disappointment of the crew who had wanted to go ashore.
When the pilot left he was pale and shaken he felt as he had
been talking to the ghosts through layers of yesterdays.
The official from shore found quantities of cigarettes and whisky
products that had been illegal for the last sixty years in the chief
stewards store, only marijuana was legal, good for the health if
smoked in moderation.
The crew was arrested send them to a camp for interrogation, but
it was clear they were brainwashed not even water torture helped.
Then it was noticed the crew of the ship were getting older first slowly
then rapidly, nurses were called for, to look after men who could no
longer walk and many were incontinent suffering advanced Alzheimer
disease and chronic heart failure.
One morning nurses found skeletons, dark in colour and very old,
like waterlogged wood that had been thrown ashore by an irate
Storm and onto the strand of time by. This was the same time
as the ship they came in sank and broke into pieces of rusty iron.
There were rumours in Sydney about aliens, those who knew were
forbidden to speak, and experts could continue to talk about how
a ship sank so suddenly and disappeared in the sea of Bay of Bengal
on a hot afternoon 150 years ago.
(an All Poetry feat to walk in
the poetic feet of Robert Frost)
Bucolic New England, circa
Early twentieth century New England
awash with dynamic harmonic leisureliness,
when much of North America favored rustic
visual whirled wide webbed watercolor
waiting afield at dusk, the thrum
of nature all abuzz didst feed thine
dizzily green jovial mien
unlike mean Gary Lewis
veritable innocence and naiveté
rollicked with mine lanky frame
relishing ambling into my own quietude
an infinite breadth, length and scope
of infrequently trammeled near virgin
woodland paths grown over with brambles
nonetheless a faintly trussed harbinger
marked by weatherbeaten
for sale signposts
with here and there an abandoned plow
long since given over
to rust when the pasture
seasons elapsed since
farmer(s) left unharvested
fecund fields absent
the cloven hoof,
and deprived enrichment
manure, sans ungulates
ceased sufficing healthy
free ranging bovines,
where etudes punctuated
the terribly gross fresh air,
now no longer audibly quickening,
snapchatting, nor twittering
with the last word of a bluebird
deathly silence now 'cept
the wind in the willows
whispering woebegone laments
tree tops pining to cradle
idle youthful dreamers
boughs devoid of
psalm quivering romantic songstress
clattering debris merely
delivering echoed whooshing refrains
continually disintegrating among
in a disused graveyard
prescient ken aches with nostalgia
hallucinogenic nightmare slams
irrevocably shut the door in the dark
closed for good upon the onset,
wrought genocide against
the vanishing Red man,
a ghostly scarification meaningless ritual
wrested, removed, and highjacked
from indigenous peoples
without rhyme, nor reason
as fraternities no
longer pledge allegiance.
Technically, not a sea at all,
Lake Superior churns up its share of sea storms.
There is not a lot to do in Marquette, Michigan:
Except for high school drivers to "buzz the gut",
Or cruise past a courthouse where "Anatomy" was filmed.
You could smoke dope or drink underage
Under a disused, fourteen story ore pocket dock.
Rusted off shards of flat black paint
Fall on the gently sloshing waves.
There is a breakwater of dumped cement blocks
That has a chain-linked fence and sign that says,
DANGER! NO TRESPASSING!
But of course, the young ones do.
And better yet if a sea storm comes.
Maritime law forbids including those who drown
As sailors lost at sea.
Broremann’s war
Spring, 1945, German troops in his town were walking about not
carrying arms, they spoke to the locals in a friendly manner.
Looking back it was peace before the peace. Near Broremann's home
there was a tall house occupied by old non- commissioned officers,
middle-aged men in their thirties with children, gave the kids
chocolate and sweets (after the war the building was taken over by
Mormons).
British troops arrived, put a canteen in a disused fish factory,
the German troops had surrendered. Broremann got white bread
with spam from the British. The Germans left by train; many
of the town´s people came to wave goodbye, there was no
dislike against the common soldiers, wrath was directed at the
local Gestapo who had betrayed their country by being crueler
than the enemy and by sporting rimless Himmler glasses.
Years later Broremann met a docker in Hamburg who had spent
five war years in his town. They drank together and declared
it had been a peaceful war.