Best Ingots Poems
What things does one possess
at journey's end?
What bits and bobs? What trivial tripe?
Please, do tell, what is the hype?
For should I recall anything at all
of trinkets obtained in memory's shawl,
it would be the warmth of a companion's smile;
his hand in mine, while on this earth for a while.
The tickle of a tide brushing against tiny toes,
while the whisper in the wind, tells me all she knows.
Should I gaze at gems, pearls, rubies, emeralds--
Forsake the wisdom of the solid for the beauty of the temporal?
Should I throw caution to the wind, like seeds for the birds,
or stick to what I know - the solemnity of the written word.
Of trinkets obtained in memory's shawl,
be there anything at all worthy of my recall?
Happiness, Peace, Love and Joy -
these remained to be my one and only lot.
These intangible things more valuable by far
than gold and silver ingots.
At journey's end I stopped to ponder,
in the cloudless starlit night,
about the heavens and her wonder;
I was struck by sudden insight:
the lightness of the moon
suspended in air,
and the weight of a mere thought
that put it there.
So I have been told
by a drunk
does he own a pair of shoes?
has he ever walked in another's?
mean and grouchy
unkind to falling leaves
what dreams were stolen
was he the thief or victim robbed?
or does whiskey make him dumb?
and numb
narrow is the hateful mind
who sold his dignity
a silver coin for naught
Scrooge counting compliments like gold ingots
stealing orphans smiles, scotch with spite
the elevator though goes only down
fury and fires and poetic justices
he will burn in hell
listening forever to the angels voices
reciting for eternity
my
very bad poetry
Hamilton, Ontario,
Is a steel making town.
You can hardly tell it,
When the sun goes down.
The slagpiles glow as the big furnace throws,
Another batch of ore.
Big ingots sit on the railway cars,
Behind the big steel doors.
They call this place DeFasco
One of the largest in the land.
It has dirty little secrets,
Buried in the sand.
Something happened one autumn night.
I'd heard the older men tell.
The shift boss heard someone screaming.
It came from the bowels of hell.
A father and son were working,
Breaking slag from a big ladles spout.
The young man couldn't get out of the way.
When the molten metal poured out.
The molten metal mixed with the mud,
To make a sticky muck.
By the time the father turned around.
He saw his son was stuck.
The boys workboots were on fire.
As he was buried to his knees.
Even his asbestos clothing ignited.
He begged to his father,"Please,"
"Put me out of my misery,
I know my days are done."
His father pushed him under the slag.
He killed his only son.
They found the old man later that night,
Running circles in the rain.
They say he never spoke another word.
They say he'd gone insane.
Sometimes during my coffee break,
I'll sit and I'll think a while.
I often find myself wondering.
Just what's under that pile.
They call the place DeFasco.
One of the largest in the land.
It has dirty little secrets,
Buried in the sand.
Note; I worked at the DeFasco Steel mill in the early nineties, and was told this story.
SENSITIVITY
They’re all ignored by us, but they have feelings too :
A black gravestone in New York, down in the world,
Recalling its halcyon days as a part of
The impressive strata at Palisades Park.
The statue in the museum of Androcles and the Lion
Daydreaming - oh, for the good old days just lying sunbaked
On the beach surrounded by
Fossil shells and shrimp at Sables d’ Olonne,
With the feet of the famous resting gently on you.
And the marble fireplace in our living room -
He can still see in his mind’s eye
The Carrara quarries in bygone days…..
Why, some of his great-grand-daddies were
Hacked out of there and taken to Rome for the Via Appia.
Oh yes, stones have feelings too.
My carved ship-of-the-line from Nelson’s navy
With her masts and spars and decks and cabins
Lies awake at night thinking of her days
In the pine forests of Norway; and next to her
This old cedar jewellery box, with intoxicating
Smells of the coast at Prince Rupert
Where she lay on the beach for weeks
Before the saw mill changed her shape and sent her to me.
The new sapele door in our hall spends hours
Wishing for his buddies in the jungles of Uganda
Where the ants would tickle you
Half to death with their constant scurrying
Up and down your branches, building this or that.
Listen closely and he’ll boast that some
of his relatives ended their days as propellers
on German zeppelins, I kid you not.
Everyone has to feel special.
And what about those unassuming steel forks in my drawer
who can still tell stories
Of their days as iron ore in Finland,
And how their brother Ernie became
A bumper on the President’s limo (supposedly).
Or my wife’s copper bracelets with their pathetic tales
Of being shipped from Cyprus
and remelted into ingots in Bimingham.
I have overheard the wings of a 747
Recollecting in the hangars at night
How their existence as bauxite in Jamaica was so idyllic,
“Wit all dat reggae and smokin’ and god knows what, man.”
They too have their memories.
And, man, de smell in dat hangar!
She sent me a lol on wattsapp
Please pass the ketchup
Mothership gliding in silent space
Umbilically us padded in shiny foil
Her face deflected in a fish bowl
Leaves only guessing about her thoughts
Lets dock Lets talk
Little ingots and tiny orbs
Suspended in the fluid of my sight
Just us against the world
Through the crackling and the static noise
Wincing hard to hear her voice
Her words a soggy sandwich
Pleading as my waning battery
But my head wouldnt dock with my heart
And somehow we became unwed
She was my torment, I was her duty
Her virtue was the softer call
And that became her beauty
Ive become much softer now
But it doesnt work for me at all
A completed work a naughty boy
Indifferent now to watch me fall
Images surge through April bold, a magical thrill I do behold;
Across the earth a glorious rite, surpassing human delight.
Clouds descend with minty air, their luster beyond compare ;
This tableu...a prelude call, as peaks of my soul's climb enthrall!
Such grandeur holds out its charms, when crest of nature's glow disarms,
And her pomp explodes on skies that resonate with my sighs...
To bask within this flaming scheme; earth reaches its height, supreme
As ecstasy fills the whorl where mirth and magic unfurl
A canticle rings out so soft as ingots of stars flick, aloft...
finally the view is set in one fire glow I can't forget;
sweet the acme of divine core as my exultations soar!
Adored from the beginning of the times
blessed for gods
spilt in sacrifices.
Nothing equalizes your purity
liquid crystal that without rest
climb to the sky to throw yourself in eternal cycle.
But fools that human beings believe
get dark your body
looking like the mind of the perverse ones.
They disguise you with wastes
in order that you are equal to the earthly miseries.
They do not understand that you are more valued
that his shiny metal ingots
or papers drawn with false values
But resists … Do not decline!
The man goes towards his death
but you, forever …
on the Earth will survive
when the diver
with his deluded desire on fire
juxtaposed the diving suit
and found false gold ingots at the bottom of the sea,
he had the vision of Eden obliterated by fire,
because if immersed or submerged as a result of errors,
you find nothing inside or outside of yourself
that is not a simulacrum of what is real,
for in the stationary orbit of irregular thoughts,
the phatic chains collapse
and what was wild about you natural
today is a modern polymer so processed,
to the point that the rattle of these failures
subdues an entire strain of humanism
that we happen to have one day
and our current mix of insanity and obsession
it is just what does not free us from more abysses,
not even if unhappiness depended only on it
or if the risk of succumbing as a gender
no longer exist in us unnecessary.
Petrified pottery ponders plots. Ploys play putting purring. And a frantically fraternising pickle arch can glow on many a skyline at dusk. In many hues. Many dusks many arches many hues and many hues mean many hundreds and many hundreds mean invite to investment of innermost inherited insectivorous institutionalised ignorant ignoramus's ingots'. But glowing of an ear bug is common in a torque typed torture chamber and a chamber is not a champion nor a charred crispy cross crossed conifer. Camels that eat hard cheese are said to be better prophets than penguins on skateboards. Fornicating false frocks falsely fall. And a little black and grey horse was speaking kindly to a tiny ball of fur which turned out to be a mouse name but cat in shape and body. How rather cruel! And derogatory too. Yet the smirking slug like actions secreting slime of a prawn headed monster with many man tentacles' and tentacles are terror and definitely not treacle treading treats. Salivate not a big bit of pie then? Fir pie is a composition of sorts types and kinds and akin to a pulsating ball of confused idiosyncratic ideological wisdom of orders originating from a glass bottom jug which weighs forty two kilos and cost eleven cities, two million towns, twenty thousand small villages, and ten hamlets. These are in a deposit global zone. A whirl of supposed suppository suppers in stupors seen but senseless. It is wise to break a mould then to create a new work for the art show shower. And bathe before baking the perimeter of pie. For pie without radius is a ravishing radish reaching radii. And how polite is a polish then? No ha no x and a big x to it as well. And one should always dangle mirrored glasses while wearing a sun hat and riding a one centimetre bull down the tidal bores. Z refurbishment z at two hens to twenty one ducks at half time. Z
spring melts into summer’s light
proving wrong that still despair,
chilled in winter’s heart,
has corroded to the marrow
for even poppies bloom
in broken fields and shell holes
bones blanketed in shrouds of moss
trill of larks cross no man’s land
as pollen floats out lazy over fields
fuzzed with sprouts and turned earth
windblossoms mazy crisscrossed
blown like crimson tracers
cicadas drone their symphonies
calling humid waves
warping off fields like sultry wraiths
moaning at dead eyed cocks on broken weathervanes
cats, lazy from the heat,
retreat to hidden nooks
détente with bird and squirrel
water oaths held dear
water ripples on silent streams
tracing gusts like a rolling barrage of cotton ingots
heavy with odors of stratosphere, of faraway places
tearing at the heart’s windsock
wet bulb heat folded in cumulous
divebombed by nectar laden bees
crazy for the blossoms
soaked and sultry queenright days
a story, sad songs
decibels rung in high towers
echelons above reality
sung to tone deaf and dusty gods
skies clear of dark storm crows
now becoming past
soon becoming now
then slides to never
as photographs fade
at times it’s too much
this heady weight of others
moments like whispers gone
while standing windburnt on hillsides
barren and mass wasted
somewhere distant wardrums beat
our racial folie à deux...
It was just a "Front", that most were supposed to see
Not a stud on the place, just "mystery donkeys"
Some days they were there, then just up and disappear
Maybe this is the reason this happened to me?
But it all had to do with the "magic donkeys"
For a long time it was a secret, then it got real clear
For several days the burros would have nothing to eat
Then Sawford had pack saddles, they all got one
About sundown the donkeys were driven to the border
To a group of Mexican drug smugglers they were to meet
Pack saddles loaded with silver ingots and pot for the next sun
It was a shipment made to order
At the barn, Sawford had the troughs loaded with waiting hay
At the border the drug smugglers would turn the burros loose
Like "homing pigeons" the donkeys came at a lope
Told the law, "Well them old donkeys have gone astray"
It worked until they got his neck in a noose
And Sawford fan out of rope
The silver was melted down, Sawford had a coin stamping machine
Making silver dollars as fast as he could
And the law never figured how the burros got there
Sawford swore up and down, "Dangest thing that I have ever seen"
"Why those bugger must have winged it here on a prayer"
He went to the pen and it did him no good
All ranches have a tale to tell, so does the old 5Y
But this one never will die, and it lives to this day
And that is a shame
But this is why?
The 5Y turned out this way
And where the term, "muling drugs' got it's name
Shall we retourne now to China
Celebrate this coming new year
To watch fire crackers and dragons
Spring festival season to cheer
Celebrate this coming new year
In fantastic Chinese style
Dance with farmers at temple fairs
Year of the monkey lets go wild
To watch fire crackers and dragons
Would surely be an awesome scene
Hanging red lanterns in the park
In the rich city of Beijing
Spring festival season to cheer
With silver ingots on our plates
Lots of delicious food and fish
And gifts of envelope’s await
© Copyright K.C.Leake
18 November 2015
All Rights Reserved
For The Contest
One more drink and just my essence
remains. My speech is owned by another
and my body moves beyond my control.
I can smell my ego and taste my vileness.
I walk the road of champions and fight
the fight of heroes. Another drink
and my fists are iron ingots,
my prowess unrivalled.
I am what every woman desires
and every man envies. I am Saturday
night dancing, without the Sunday
morning blues.
One more drink and I am a friend to the world .
And, as my ripple affects everything around me,
I become complete. No shyness, no redeeming qualities.
The bull to my harem.
So why am I bleeding and broken?
My words were strong and my stance
even stronger. Yet here I sit, undone
like a cork from a bottle.
Where was my prowess, my touch
of steel? Lied to by the contents
of my glass, I am bitter. I paid
my money, where was my victory?
The taxi home, the swollen eye. My ego,
ballooned at the bottom of a glass, deflated
by the prick of a fist. And my voice, once baritone
in timbre, has become timid in frame.
The morning wakes with screeming echoes
of the night before and phone calls from
laughing hyena's that I'll meet at work
on Monday morning.
When all else lays on eve’s mantle,
this heartbeat stirs, awakening unto a flicker
of midnight-- and I observe if the early jay
had returned from its chilled dwellings … Not
at this moment, not yet as thinning beams fade
while my heels race out; struck by gray of darkness.
Eventide bestows a time for pained outrage
when the discovery of loved ones’ sudden farewell
comes unforeseen, when ardent dreams
transform into hostility… and glimpses trace
a juggle of distant stars: my parents,
my three brothers’ delicate frames
perhaps roaming through a heap of wiry leaves
as if crushed riddled by
ingots on an embattled skyline ...dawn
quickens heading eastward,
until child-like hands fold in litanies of prayer
denying I had lost them entirely:
In the blue midnight, I wait, wait for their
return in full knell from jay's anthem--
knowing the crypt of mortality terrifies
this vulnerable abandoned being.
Am I now a real orphan, life’s distraught survivor?
Tell me, dear fate...
because even the gods do not answer.
..................
1/03/2019
Caren Krutsinger’s My Loudest Feelings Contest
~ In honor of my brother who passed away last year~
I believe in love
Steel ingots, chains of heart
Never let them break