Best Pulley Poems
"The Flipside"
We write
our hearts out
we pull
the catch back in
slowly,
they read,
we think,
too fast
swallowed
in the hollowed out
hallowed hearts measured
ounce per ounce
we write
our hearts out
stamping footprints
obstinance turning
ourselves
inside, out
stone washing
ourselves
inside
out
written on
lines
wrung out,
expelled
pegged left
hanging
right
left
without
missives,
no doubt
on the flip side
of eternity
gravity
grounds us
toes
touch the ground
neck and face
upwards
downwards,
still life
breathing
eyes watching,
reading, waiting
the mystery
we believe,
or, we sit still
debating
the earthly
volume
a boulder
pulley drawn
backwards
forwards
backwards
in quarters
we are quartered
like poetry
we are,
washed
in clouds
inside
out,
we are
on the
flipside ;
waiting
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
"Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind."
Nathaniel Hawthorne
I sneer at grandfather clock, standing in the hall,
listening as his ticking, leaves my anger spent.
I long to bind his hands and make time crawl,
and if that's considered a sin, I will never repent.
His old brass pendulum swings much too fast,
like a gossip, repeatedly wagging his tongue.
Oh, how I would love to make him gong his last
so I'd have eternal peace when his bell is wrung.
His infinite chime persists at the top of each hour
and in that moment I feel recurring pain.
I must get past the relentless echo of his power.
Headaches from his hammering drive me insane!
Not in the present, but I swear that one day soon
I'll find a way to remove his pulley and chains.
No longer will he gambol that annoying tune,
a cadenced rhythm in redundant refrain.
Time - 8 Word Challenge
Sponsored by A Dear Heart
Posted on July 3, 2020
I am the tangible wind
the subtle breeze whispering
passionate hints throughout
uncharted mounds dancing
beneath the infamous sun
feeding hungry hearts gathering
missing pieces holding time
in place withered by tainted bliss
I am the rapture magnified
brilliantly over land and sea
a multitude of languages spoken
without listening without hearing
I am the gully the levy the pulley
of souls dazed captured and released
between the meeting of the mind
kissing the shores time after time
LEAVING BOYHOOD BEHIND
White shirt 'n' school tie to blue-collar, dress-code is changing with age
From schooldays to pay-days, from homework to hard work
School bells and game playing to work's whistle and wage earning
With new mates, dirty jokes and smoking, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Seven-thirty start time to five-thirty finish, playtime is shortening with age
From footy-boots to work-boots, from school cap to flat-cap
Five hour days and school clock to nine hour days and time-clock
With clocking on, punch cards and overtime, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Sitting with the lads and a big mug of tea, some things taste different with age
From cream soda to warm beer, from tu'penny mix to filter-tips
Learning piecework rates and new skills, paying union subs and betting slips
***-packet backs, sledge-hammers and betting, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Working with Paddy in the oven's fiery heat, this is much too hot at any age
From cold iron bar to white hot, from straight angle-bar to boiler-flange
From the furnace to the big rolls and bend it, working fast before
Lift it out, knock it flat and weld it, oh where has my boyhood gone
In the Boiler-shop to learn fabrication, things mustn't drop apart with age
From marking out to Oxy-gas cutting from riveting to electric arc welding
Not much in the way of protection with no heath 'n' safety laws here
With air-hammers, no ear-plugs or goggles, oh where has my hearing gone?
Moving big metal sheets down the plate-shop, I must be getting stronger with age
From plate stack to marking out table from load stable to not very safe
Two tons of metal on the pulley, the chain slips and it's down with a bang
Metal crashing, men jumping and cursing, oh where has my life nearly gone
Day-release Thursday at college, lessons still needed with age
From going to Derby and back again, from going by bus to car driving
The Lacarno dance-hall at lunch-time, try chatting up girls for some fun
A quick jive, some posing and a coffee, oh where has my boyhood gone
Dating girls at the week-end and hoping, urges get stronger with age
From meeting up early to dancing, from front seat to back seat for fun
Babysitting her niece on a Tuesdays this gives us some time on our own
Snogging, heavy petting and much further... boyhood gone
Used to be the Mafia.
Glory to shameful violence.
Off balanced dodgers,
No reconciliation, by Story.
Oh, thank Jesus.
Oh, Thyatira
As time now diminishes?
Now urban dump sites,
Steps into focus.
I can't bare to mention.
Oh, Laodicea.
The place or time, it scavenges.
An untouchable and lofty perch.
Oh, Jesus, Who were the pharisees,
At your contention?
Why are rotten cotton balls,
Running up and down my spine?
A simple act of cunning?
A spine of stained glass?
Oh, Satan
Lean on our purity.
Lean on our purity.
What we have.
Oh, Ephesus.
Oh, Whoever.
Is it too much to ask?
For equal time about covetousness?
As if it never was.
In telling others how to run their lives?
Thank Satan.
My answer.
Why bother?
I know your incapable .
Oh, Sardis.
I'm far from right.
I know it.
Astounding homework abounding.
My dearly beloved canary.
Words so softly spoken.
Echoes a fading token.
For we challenged Davids scrolls.
oh, Pergamum.
But why? Heaven knows.
Dishing out the dread.
Confirmed by those found dead.
What glory in it?
Never confirmed in advance.
Oh, Smyrna.
Always after the deed.
Oh, New Millennium.
Oh, how my canary blossoms.
Discrepancies forgotten?
A beautiful and melodious chirp.
When the astrologers walk into Church.
But Why?
Advance your pulley.
Garnish your ear plugs.
Grease your train, in your yard.
Turn it all around.
Always your.
{Don,t get it yet!}
Nonsense!
Covetousness!
Nonsense!
Righteousness!
God has his secrets.
Fueled by our ignorance.
Seven to twelve.
God loves lofty odds.
Hows that! Summation.
Oh, Philadelphia
Love Jesus, The Church.
Revelation.
Beginning or end? Oh all.
This is an outstanding poem and thought that
everyone should read it. I also copied the credits
and author's name. Jim Horn
Poem of the Day: Famous
by Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
"Famous" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of the author.
Source: Words under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
Like an inner child running wild
Where age now tells me no
An ancient beautful fame, now
In an old woman's frame
Like a spirit so grand
Just waiting to expand
Locked in it's infant cage
Waiting for death to turn the page
Like a butterfly snug
In a cocoon getting ready
The shell is crisp
And wings are spreading
Like expressing myself fully
Raising myself with pen as pulley
Breif but universal
All with in the parameters of a poem
Screaming "Let me out!"
(A rewrite of Caties poem)
I used to walk carefree around this world,
My shoulders light and free of any chips
Not thinking fate would ever come unfurled
By nonsense escaping naïve lips
I thought Murphy ’s Law was ludacris
Karma for a mind that over thinks
Superstition existed to dismiss
All part of fate’s anxiety hijinks’
Until it came to my moving day
I lived high up on the 11th floor
Casually to the moving guys, “Hey,
Do this quick, I’ll tip you a little more.”
A few shortcuts to speed things up a bit
“What’s the very worst that could happen?
Throw straps on that piano, get on with it,
Hurry up now, I’m too busy to tap in.”
Off I went to an important meeting
Signed the client that made everyone wary
Called 3 times for this face to face greeting
I wonder why they call her bloody Mary
No bad ever gets to me, nothing could
I stepped on cracks all the way home, too
And I refuse to ever knock on wood
Who could be so down with a sky so blue!
I peered up toward the aforementioned sky
A feeling unfamiliar appeared
A trick of the reflection in my eye?
Or warnings come to fruition I feared
Hurtling down due to a broken pulley
Was my big beautiful baby grand
No one took the time to check it fully
And I stood right where it was to land
I wish now I watched my fate testin’ talk
Cuz that piano is really hummin’
Whose ivories tickled me into sidewalk
Damn, I guess I shoulda seen it comin’
January 27, 2023
Shoulda Seen it Comin' Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
i'd wandered again staring
into streams of livid pools waving
raptures of rushing currents startled
beyond such graveness however tempted
to explore even more than before i'd missed
your pondering about awaiting my dashing exit
away from the flock that scattered sparingly
my temperament craved so much more
why the gravity along led me by surprise
with curiosity and grace your demeanor
seemed to shield my immature nature
calmly beyond a single sphere a certain
chastisement lingering gently between
the stone pavement a white stick hidden
gestures being heard only throughout
the babbling brooks gnashing against
large pebbles into solid foundations
henceforth creating distance an yet forming
a pulley blending mind body and soul into
thrashing madness mingling timelessly chafed
and bruised chanting i'm back
As i dream this dream so blue,
Woodlands search for the scent of you,
As there legs get tired and there heads grow wired,
Not a height in forest can see through,
In the plastered smear of a dark night,
My iris bleeds the unfair fight,
Although a sense gets bullied, pulling round on its pulley,
With our touch we can pull through this dead light.
Theres racing violence in these rooms,
Carry me through each exit wound,
I will bleed for you lover, use my soul as you cover,
And my eyes so you'll find where our life leads,
Breaking bodies and boundaries to find you,
I climbed each wall for that afternoon,
When i looked into your eyes and i finally felt wise,
Because i saw you, completely.
Father, why did you desert me when I needed you so?
How could you watch me leave and let go?
You threw me away like yesterday's dirty trash
Why did you take my heart to stomp and thrash?
How could you choose a woman over your own child?
Acting like I am to blame for being angry and wild
Father, why me? I ask you at every chance given
Why would you let me alone to figure out living?
When my mother left, you looked at me cruelly
Thus started you putting my heart on a pulley
Father, why did you reject me and my undying love?
And when I was on the edge you tried to shove
Me over the edge for your own selfish reasons
With your parental trust you committed treasons
You tossed me out and I grew up all alone
I can honestly say I felt fear to the bone
So one last time before I am done for good
Father, why didn't you love like a father should?
Yesterday , I woke up frozen
In sorrow cubes
Scattered on the ground
To trample underfoot
The certainty of sprouts
Rooted in the fear of crowd
That is sorry , tired
Of the designs of a dream
Of peace and freedom
Embedded in the pulley
Of brotherhood acts
Today , I woke up frozen
In cubes of certainty
Which the sun no longer melts
Even if elevated
At higher temperature
The reality of the scourge
In cubes of certainty
I will face the sober of the whip
Napoleon’s men marched on Moscow
And promptly perished.
So did Hitler’s men!
Once the US wanted to ‘save’ Vietnam,
Made life miserable—
For both Americans and the Vietnamese.
Then, Iraq grew restless
And wanted Kuwait back.
For China,
It was Tibet then, Taiwan now,
Anything else tomorrow,
Without which how can the nation rest in peace?
For Pakistan it is the valley.
Back home, now a motif,
Now a topos, some rallying point.
It is all déjà vu, isn’t it?
Perhaps it’s the Law:
Let them be rich and restless;
Or poor and weary!
***
The clothesline hung, low, and limp.
Raucous, red, long johns
and worn, white, blue jeans
pinned like butterflies in a box;
dangled bodiless.
The neighbors all envied Mom’s skill.
Nobodies tidy whities were brighter.
The pulley wheel whined and clanked
against back porch clapboards
when a stiff wind blew through.
And, the state of your laundry
was like the state of the union jack;
you hung ‘um both high
and took ‘um down when the rain came.
This is a poetry eerily populated with ghosts and mummies and zomboid creatures who go on living though dead from love.
— Patrick McGarth*
ZOMBOID CREATURES
no way out of the well…ceaseless pulley.
forlorn, deep is the grave.
for the dead, love is a bully
no one can save.
doped up, tears dry in somnambulant night.
bones rave toward the cliff.
a blind man’s bluff, i’ve lost my sight -
this zomboid stiff.
love dropped out; i’m eaten up with her scent -
bouquet of floral bath.
i pursue - a ghostlike lament,
off beaten path.
she sat upon the mound, of fresh dug soil,
wrapped up in her own grief,
a mummy terrified - a foil…
aperitif.
1/7/2023
Writing Challenge - Zip, Zig, Zag, Zing
Sponsor: Constance La France
Theme Z word: Zomboid
Used Howmanysyllables and rhymezone
*Obtained from Merriam-Webster