Best Lathe Poems
THE JEWELER’S LATHE
Summer’s last rose
After many admiring morning visits
And with nature’s rusty brown and gold
Surrounding, drawing comparison,
Becomes even more pink and beautiful
Being aware as being – native to all souls –
Nature strives to improve,
The old become new
New, alike the jeweler’s lathe
Polishing polishing
Refining awareness -
The familiar like a great Schubert string quartet
Suddenly with new revealing.
Leonard Bernstein says about music,
to the effect,
”An old friend becomes more dear”
Refining one’s awareness
There can be no drudgery,
But there must be effort,
Must be the look-through,
A soul’s effort to find.
Therein lies the beauty,
The finding.
When the diamond
Set to the jeweler’s lathe
Catches sun
Dave Austin
Artists are not so different,
at times glossing over truth,
hiding beneath a sheen --
some extra linseed goes
a long way...
What is this cry for realism?!
Picasso sought deeper meaning
via grotesque breasts~ elongated
elephant snout limbs -- perhaps believing that
the human tale needed elevation, himself
turned off by surface vistas; his squares and
points dulled by well turned chips, projected
missile-scraps flying from Leonardo's festive lathe of
tantalizing symmetries --
We marvel equally at
Dali's vaulted extremes, teetering balance --
a bleeding martyr of old Faith; despite all his
fiend distortions, imagined glorification~
dear, yet mere echoes, stills from the sable of
an unrequited Christian brush --
So...is the poet so different?
The Metaphysical digs, tunnels,
(anthropomorphic God)
chambers and catacombs to romp
about -- secretly displacing what
would otherwise be a straightforward
pleasant lyrical walk -- We
confound paint and words
presenting two types of portrait
of the same elusive image
the greater decipher, if there is
one to be had, will never be the
product of personal tribulation,
but the spirit behind, within, carefully
feathering, dotting and dashing
each of man's extended biographies --
a dance of human veils....
Hands of the piety
Phalanges of work and charity
Driven to spearhead not stoop
Enliven and share not droop
Fingers we dip on stoupe
Churches of the holy in troop
Our faith we lathe with pride
Strongly we hold not stride
Images we fond and draw
Murals we touch like straw
Gentleness in open hands we pave
Roughness in helping hands we stave
Our works and thoughts are one
Over thorns and bouts of man
Skins and colors of faith
Fins and winged colors of the laith
You are a work of art
Embellished with paints of heart
Filled with a well of hope
Influx of worth in the hull of rope
Ropes are extensions of hope that purport
Strengthened by faith and hands of support
The Perfect Circle Plant was where most kids went to work as a general rule,
To begin a life of donkeywork upon graduation from the local school.
I dreamed of things far beyond the horizon like visitin' Rome or Istanbul,
Not a life of drudgery in the plant or plowin' corn behind a ploddin' mule!
I suppose I could've gone to work there, married and had a flock of kids,
But such a mundane life would've driven me to booze, landin' me on the skids!
They made expansion rings and such for airplanes, ships and tanks.
Not for me! I chose the Air Force! For that I've always given thanks!
While I enjoyed the beauty of Bermuda (where I 'fought' the Korean War),
My peers were waitin' for quittin' time, performin' their borin' chore!
I reckon they made about five bucks an hour turnin' out expansion rings.
I only made a hundred bucks a month, but it paid for my youthful flings!
I just couldn't see myself turnin' nuts and bolts and payin' union dues,
Or catchin' hell from the ol' lady for stoppin' by the pub for some brews!
While I was dinin' on steak and sippin' Tom Collins' at the Plantation House,
My pals back home were eatin' meatloaf and listenin' to their spouse's grouse!
I hasten to say that the Perfect Circle Plant provided my friends with needed work,
But operatin' a planer or lathe eight hours a day would've driven me berserk!
Should I have taken Dad's advice and hired on at the plant had I to do it over?
Nah! I wanted to get off the farm and leave the county 'cause I'm an avid rover!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Once more without sleep
all dreams exhausted
Neurotransmitters on high alert
rekindling furious flames
that lap hungrily through mid-back to feet
Like a chippy chiseling wood on the lathe
I splinter and crack - screaming for regression
Just as a computer malfunctioning
I await time for reboot of my system
brief medical intervention -
some respite peace and solace
that in the whole of life
taken as one performance of the arts
it is but a musical interlude
short-lived in high anticipation of entr'acte
Terms used:-
chippy - a carpenter
solace - relief from emotional distress/source of comfort at a time
of sadness, grief or disappointment
interlude - short period of transition/break
entr'acte - between the acts
Hey, I've got me a plan to survive World War Three
And it doesn't involve living deep in the sea
With a mermaid named Maddy from that '80s movie
Or a grey-skinned E.T. hoping to crossbreed with me.
There's a bunch of big blokes known as Bigfoot to some
And they live in the woods where most humans won't come
Though they've entered our culture as the years have gone by
They are still seen as legends and old myths, that's no lie.
See, in spite of their fur and their size they're quite smart
For their fondest desire is to live well apart
From us primates who ravage the Earth without pause
Like the virus that spreads through its host - just because.
Called by Yeti and Sasquatch and still other things
They refer to themselves as "Jemah" and are beings
Who, unlike the poor bipeds that include me and you,
Can converse without speech, like our pets often do.
Though the tallest are known to have grown to nine feet
And they stink like old garbage, not to mention dead meat
I shall fashion my life on this heavenly lathe;
I'll make Sweet Thing my wife, and I won't have to bathe.
I set alight a fire burning bright
It was a blaze of hope, of faith
Having no tinder, I thought I might
Burn my heart; and smoke billowed, wraith.
I whittled at the carbon fuel, chipping as its lathe.
“A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half-remembered glory.”
“A strong man makes a weak people. A strong people don’t need a strong man.”
John Steinbeck (Nobel Prize 1962)
for the DEAD in the Struggle for EELAM
I
Ages from now, let it not be said:
Blood spills only as brother dies.
Ages from now, let not peace be bled
By chances lost now in sighs.
To the high nor low slams the door
To him who seeks the Law and more.
Take, take the Golden Mean way!
Truth your only key, don’t ever slay!
Where the elephant roams un-tethered free,
The familiar myna will echo carefree
Words of yore buried in sacred memory:
One breed, one species carved in ivory.
No greater fear simmers in the lowlands
Than the stealth of brother against brother;
No higher disdain festers in the highlands
Than vengeance lying in wait for the other.
II
Think not of the promises made and broken,
Think only of the time lost and forsaken.
Every hour, every day, a life blown or taken;
Every month, every year, a people woe-driven.
To the high nor low slams the door
To him who seeks the Law and more.
Take, take the Golden Mean path!
Truth your only key, never the lathe!
Think of Prince Paranirupasingham who to succour
King Jayavira’s queen, to Kandy, fled his throne:
Abandoned to court intrigue, schemes and wiles encore:
A princely retreat, a physician’s penance alone.
First governor, then regent, the last Jaffna King Cankili
Learnt best the conqueror's cruel art of slaughter;
Then, fired by the local converts' iniquitous treachery,
Revolted too late, his head the butt of lofty laughter.
Think of C.P. Ramanathan the island’s cause to defend
Sailed over choppy seas past wild submarines
To raise the nation’s flag in the court of the Empire’s den,
His homeward chariot drawn by one peoples’ teens.
(...continued in Parts 3 to 5)
Twiddle, twiddle,
Work and whittle.
You say with wood
You have to fiddle.
Building cabinets
And turning bowls
The saw roars
And the lathe rolls.
A simple piece
Of wood we see.
You have the sight
Of what can be.
A piece of nothing
So lovingly held.
But with your tools
You soon meld.
And from your heart
Wonders appear.
Works of art
That we hold dear.
Inside a grotto scooped out by a wealthy earl for his seated pleasure,
There sat a bard amidst the edelweiss strung 'round the hole of leisure.
Fallen droplets of acidic water pitter-pattered in echoes across the cave,
Slowly weathering away its leaky limestone layers as would a mason's lathe.
The bard, whose unimportant name shall be dismissed, strung away at his lyre,
Tickling its strings with unclipped fingertips which pick up songs from every wire.
Mediocrity had once been the nemesis to the boyish bard in his recent youth,
But now, after endless nights of practice, his expertise needed little proof.
He grew bored, however, with the memorized music that his body hummed,
From hypnotic and melodic languid limbs, which on their own had strummed.
Seated that evening on the edge of the grotto's bank,
He put down his lyre as both his eyes into the water sank.
"I am but twenty-six years-old and I've already come to master," he pined,
"Trading tales told inside of tunes; what more on Earth for me is there to dine?
Have I drunk the goblet dry in but a gulp?
Have I swallowed the savory pie in but a bite?
And have I been denied, in gluttony, the right to dessert?
Please, oh motherly moon, dearest Selene,
What more is there for my life to mean?"
During his pouting pitiful preponderances of apathetic patheticism,
A scattered image on his own reflection distracted him from his pessimism.
An eidolon of Endymion appeared before the startled bard,
And he held within phantasmal hands a deck of playing cards.
"My name is Endymion and I once walked awoken in Earthen woods,
Until I fell in love with Hera before her husband banished me for good.
I succumbed to an endless and dreamless slumber, but I can now see,
You fear you already lived your life and will be put to rest like me.
Yet life is but a game of Pitch, there are highs and lows and jacks and game,
Which is scored in not one hand but rounds whose cards will never be the same.
You've played your hand well in an entertaining trade, as you have felt,
So now its time to shuffle the deck and play with cards that've yet been dealt."
With that the ghost of Endymion drifted back into his eternal sleep,
And the bard in the grotto grinned and eagerly forgot why he did just weep.
Sparks of inspiration fueled frisson building, crafting,
designing, a gamut of glorious finished products, that
offset bereft reaction dad experienced at workplace.
Seventh heaven for him found in the cellar at "Glen
Elm", where freelance dadaist artist, this detail
potential heresy if management got wind of dough
less than enthusiastically firstly sprouted out
(then whispered down the ally) far from domain dollars
doled re: paycheck. When off hours prevailed, thee
extremely adroit, deft, galvanized phalanges (tethered
at the wrist) wrought living, fascinating breathing
blueprints (formerly figments) alive. Thy paternal
parent poured heart and soul into self concocted
projects summoned forth from lathe as an artisan,
whose abundant treasured trove housed innovative
creations (now long since dashed to smithereens,
when the faded glory sans 324 level road defeated
against wrecking ball minus Miley Cyrus).
Now, he evinces considerably less inconsolably
distraught bereavement since securing love from
a lovely lady, unlike me mum as night and day),
idle dextrous hands remain retired of my
octogenarian widower papa, no longer
plies adeptness commanding manual co
ordination once coaxing finished product. Emotional
grief wrought via death of Harriet (the bride he
wedded well nigh 'bout a half century in duration),
and remained faithfully married, her death
(more'n a dozen years ago), viz grim reaper stoled, snatched,
snagged his loving mate. Twas for her eyes
he contrived, finessed, harnessed his ingenious joy.
Hospital Bed
You lay there on the hospital bed
Looks, begging at me
Shaved head, white face
Tubes with fluid from your brain
My first, my kindest, most verbal
Unable to move, to speak
Dear God, I would tear down heaven
Raise up hell, to help, to fix
You came back to us,
A hard road travelled by you
Courage and will ablaze
And now you, a professor in brains
Your Disney baboon, I bought you
Whose arms could hold you when I couldn’t
Sitting on my desk now, can’t believe
The memories held in fluff
A hand upon your brow, cool lathe
Your angel came to see you
Told you, all would be well, no matter
Had a beautiful smile you said
I believe in miracles
Eternal, unknowable, infinite love
“Dad, don’t sweat the small stuff” ,you said
Know what ? - gets truer every day.
J Paul Kennedy
Larry Higgs insisted on having a beard
although his wife said it made him look weird.
One day while using a lathe
he got too close by a shave.
Alas, he's uglier than she had feared.
Ride over 4000000000 mountains on a baked tray
Times a tide,
Divide a ride,
Equal to no one is the writhe of a sprite,
In a whirl of a rotating rhombus,
Is the real
The reality of an equilateral is the lathe of a scimitar
For no reason look beyond the y and see an x but never see a z
For that is the simultaneous division of a chime
And chimichangas do not dine they light and heat
So never ask one to tea accompanied with a clinking cyclic cube
For cubic dimensions are often multiplied by vertices of a vertical stagnant swerve
And a swerve is not a serve nor a serving nor a swear word either
Hither is the hidden and the hidden call out “hide” and then the hide becomes a rational game of geometrical germinations
Theories have tongues
Tongues have tangents
Is anyone really a triangle though?
Or any other shape really?
Is that all rather rhythmical
And rhyme is the masterful preparation akin to chop chop chopping a line of fresh vegetables for a dinner,
Foregone conclusion with or without a calculator
No test or exam could predict an pout of an outcome
Best learn chart chants then.
Lean no learning on a linguistic linguine pant tray
Option no a b c d e f g h on exponential journeys
For exponential journeys to the central locational key are best achieved through the petals of a rose
And that was the prediction of key and after thoughts of a signal erosion
Oh dear
Well that either said or did not say
Prehaps it is better if the pitter patter of the rain fell in awkward shaped
Misshaped misshaped
Times a tide,
Divide a ride,
Equal to no one is the writhe of a sprite,
In a whirl of a rotating rhombus,
Is the real
And that is the duty of the drag. The dog. The daring. And the dutiful. And the diligent daboecia whose eyes see no one but a little stick in the air. WOW what an isoamyl acetate that is to smell and taste.
Z Ornithogalum adseptentrionesvergentulum Z at 19 cantering wildebeest looking at 21 biscuits Z
Mercantilist's eating's math
noon at McDonalds, what a blast,
resolve the crowding, in youths path
the refill pop, the greatest lathe!
A happy wave, the managers wrath
is so subdued, her profits stag
is coinciding teamwork's staff
Keep quiet a bit, my poem grows ~ half!
This wanderings rebuff, seeming quaff,
I must find sustenance, not graft
IT'S HERE ~ the burger, fries, compact
so journey's reason, eat ~ no flack~
I'll learn to write, booth, table's track
vacations harboring of new facts,
so commonplace, all drive-ins have
their time, your stomach . . . last/alas!