Best Quarries Poems
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!
Categories:
quarries, funnynight, old, beach, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
Rolling hills, alive with hydrangea and thyme
O'er cavernous quarries of sapphire and lime
Darting monarchs, tiger swallowtails
Artwork on the wing, a-lighting in the dale
A tender, spotted fawn startles awake
My awkward footsteps her slumber shakes
She pirouettes away, with virtuoso leaps
Each elegant stride, mine forever to keep
July 05, 2020
Strand Completely New (5) Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Categories:
quarries, animal, beauty, flower, memory,
Form:
Couplet
Silently I walk inside the woods of wonder
Vigilant of signs that I seek of prey,
Blending with landscapes display,
Exploring networks without blunder,
Not placing anything into plunder.
Seek to win my prize in anyway.
Never to eradicate, for only play,
Whether mammal or animal sunder.
Both quarries I believe are cunning.
That I have hunted in my life.
Each target has sent me running.
Equally they have given me strife.
As well mutually they are stunning.
Whether my Dear, or Deer, so rife.
Categories:
quarries, imagery, life, social, symbolism,
Form:
Italian Sonnet
The thicket moves, my aim must not waver;
with strengthened arms I bend my bow of yew:
My eyes pierce the brush, intent to savor
the sights of a good hunt, an arrow true.
The bracken parts, rattling, empty sighs;
My draw fingers quake from the constant chill.
My quarries' breath floats to the clouded sky,
my own breath muffled as I track my kill.
Overhead, an arrow in deadly arc
speeds toward the bear I'm seeking, still as stone;
A shadow moves, the arrow strikes its mark.
The hand that loosed the shaft was not my own.
I am a man shadowed; death comes knocking:
The hunter hunted; the past comes stalking.
Categories:
quarries, animal, irony, pain, strength,
Form:
Sonnet
Exhaust fumes and flower blooms
Acrid smells, gentler scents
& pungent decay
Hot molten gold flows out of a clear
blue sky
Cars rumble down streets made into
alleys through the trees that tower
over them like Eiffel
Or Freedom
With the rain age old mud mixes
into the seams of recently laid
concrete
My city is a cyborg
With kudzu wrapped telephone wires
weaving away from its heart like
veins through body
Carrying life-lines to its extremities
Steel office buildings rise from the
ground alongside the trees that we
plant on the sides of downtown streets
Because we don't want to forget
what the land was like before we
came
And our quarries carved down mountains
and our progress intruded on mother nature
We don't want to forget what things were like
Before the South started to
become "new" and king Cotton lost
his right to rule to the steel mills, quarries and commercialization and
became a peasant
Before industrialization changed the landscape
And Birmingham earned the nickname "The Magic City"
Civil Rights demonstrators marched
some of the same streets we walk
And the 16th Street Baptist Church
has an exhibit that reminds us that
sometimes progress comes with a high
price
right across from the Civil Rights Institute
Part of Martin's dream came true in some places
Black and white children play
together now
But you can still see the Confederate
Flag hanging from a pole at the side
of the interstate as you go down
towards Florida
The Klan still holds rallies
and buzzards can still be seen eating
road kill in the middle of the suburbs
This is still the south
What some call the country
....and minders of the past are
never that far away.....
Categories:
quarries, black african american, city,
Form:
My life is playing me
The whore that it is
Patient zero got it from her
The whole world is without protection
My life is beating me
The rod that it is
The whales can’t ever stop moaning
My whole world is with pain pollution
My life is breaking me
The rock that it is
All quarries would be empty
The whole world made of sand from a gods imagination
My life is scarring me
The raw wound that it is
A bed of corpses less gory
My whole world is graveyard for hope and salvation
My life is leaving me
The whole time that it is
My screams and shouts can’t even reach her
The whole world racing to unknown destination
My life is killing me
The load that it is
Drainages clogged, latrines like her mouth flowing
My whole world pushing problems to disinfecting solution
Categories:
quarries, funny love, gothic, heart,
Form:
Verse
IRONBRIDGE SHROPSHIRE
River Severn’s now a fishing spot.
Two centuries ago it was not.
The cradle of industrial revolution
Rocked fastest here - Iron construction
Arching proud - Telford’s bridge was born
Among the elder and the hawthorn.
Coal mines, furnaces, stony quarries,
Early train-tracks - sooty glories.
Now the river sweeps silent south
From hilly birth to ending mouth.
Smoke and soot have had to cease
River Severn has returned to peace
…………………………………………………………..
Note:
Ironbridge is the name of a small town on the River Severn
in Shropshire, England. It derives its name from the famous Iron Bridge, built 1779.
Categories:
quarries, historyriver,
Form:
Couplet
“By Whatever Means”
Halos are us
shining examples
of fallen poetry
gauntlets warm
hearts pumping blood
dog catchers of thieves
lives stolen
then retrieved
by whatever means
our quarries
captive, then fed
to Cerberus
Halos are us
shining examples
of fallen poetry
lives stolen
then retrieved
by whatever means
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Categories:
quarries, dark, light, muse,
Form:
Narrative
IF YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE…
“A quiet and modest life,” says he in German, the most successful of them/us all, “brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest.”
Albert Einstein’s hand-written tip to a courier at the Imperial Hotel
Tokyo, November 1922
If you think you’re the only one to record the way the world’s run
Know that every top’s naked spun when the wrapped string’s outrun
Everyone’s in such a hurry to step out of this collapsing quandary
Even if the one and only query is left without comforting certainty
Everybody wants a piece of posterity to be part of everlasting history
Even at the cost of mimicry if only to keep shoring up sheer vanity
Fire burns out in an empty shell the way the poem slim content quell
Who reads for meaning to feel well means to read more feeling swell
Roads lead to where one wants to go, lines come to an end in vertigo
To each ego own voice sounds best, who renounces the will but hobo
Tell this to a Cervantes five years in quarries after the Battle of Lepanto
Confront Dostoeyeski with firing squad again after four years in Siberia
Tear Theo from Van Gogh’s bosom after Gauguin’s bullish loud hysteria
Tease Mozart in his deathbed with the sleepless scores of his concerto
There’s no quiet in a modest life for billions will step eager on your face
Our world honours the sham strong the phoney the fake the half-baked
The weak work all day not to crave success but to fend off all disgrace
No true mother harassed by rape abandons the baby for rapists’ sake
Success is always drenched in sweat except for those fils de Putes
Who inherited the earth long before the oldest profession followed suit
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Categories:
quarries, happiness, rights, success, women,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Again, alone awake accidental?
barely by blunt brain burdens
curtains... cut crooked carefully
draped dangerously during dusk,
every emotion enhanced euphoric
from finger, face & freckle....
gingerly grasping gestures growing gracefully.
hesitant hands hold his heart's hastily.
I imagine important
jitters, jetting, jumping,
knocking knees knowing....
luscious , lustful lips longing…
makes more magic memories...
nighttime necessity never neglects...
open obsessions of our objectives
prevail... pleasure, pure puzzle piece poison.
Quiet questions quench quarries...
random, rare, rational realities,
suggestions so stimulating senses savoring sex,
smooth skin...
timeless tales, the tactic touch.
Ultimately unclothed unknown & unavoidable
valuable venom varies vindictively.
We wait within wind whirls, wondering
xenophile in xanadu xeroxing
your youthful years yearning
zestful, zany & zone free
Categories:
quarries, feelings, love, lust, psychological,
Form:
ABC
4/30/17
Underneath what they consider lunar
Don't care if your name is super
So much for your future
And all of the rumors
There is nowhere you can go to outmaneuver
When I turn into Krueger
Take you out before the sound of the rooster
Whether or not on the computer
Or a scooter
Oh well that just makes one fewer
I don't care if you can't appreciate my humor
I come from the sewer
Not much of a snoozer
But a heavy duty boozer
Warning
Night and morning
The rage accumulating and forming
Before, during and after storming
In and out of areas with bugs that continue swarming
Feeling like Rick and not so much Morty
The temperature below, above or at the forties
In and out of different territories
Near and far from quarries
Coming in like Vorhees
It doesn't matter if you heard all the stories
Because nothing can prepare you for me
Considering that we all fall in different categories
And carry our own inventories
Mine can make it gory
Yours are empty normally
For you it just may end up horribly
Drawn out or ending shortly
I don't care about the glory
Or so called purgatory
A simple and friendly reminder
Don't have on your blinders
Think wiser
At elevations lower and higher
On foot or tires
Looking like Myers
In and out of areas devastated by fires
Above and below telephone wires
With a pair of pliers
Ready to eliminate any liars
Leaving behind no traces or fibers
Tried to go after me, but instead
He was caught, and pissed the bed
As it was off with his head
When I was Pinhead
Could be worse or better
More or lesser
Something that would do you some good to remember
Before I lose control of my temper
And become Lecter
Against whomever
Thinks their clever
Whenever
During any weather
The surrounding suddenly became redder
Not concerned about opinions
A one man army on a mission
They wanted to give me a million
Endless medical prescriptions
And to persuade me with religion
But I wouldn't give in or listen
Because I am a villain
By: Dalton Ogletree
Categories:
quarries, poetry, rap, word play,
Form:
Rhyme
The harvest specter
of Artemis levitates
in midnight sky
beyond a temple's frail bones.
Her aura imbues the marrow
as haunted zephyrs breathe imperial runes
culled from quarries
in the scintillating saffron
emblazoning Apollo's halcyon.
Atop graveyards of heroes
pillars weep dry pebbles to Aegean eminence,
from Alexander's subjugated Persians
to Agamemnon’s trickery
on the plains of Troy.
When marble shadows lengthen
and drift in her shifting light
the moon goddess
stills all whispers
as she mourns the spectacle of bravura
retreating to dust.
6/20/18
Categories:
quarries, moon, myth, night,
Form:
Ekphrasis
If nothing's new under the Sun,
whence, pray tell, did this poem come?
My Ego itches, my side in stitches-
When Morning thoughts have their fun.
Bring the houris and tell them stories-
thine odalisques should fawn
O'er the glories of our quarries-
before the day has dawned.
Categories:
quarries, fun, morning, poems, sun,
Form:
Rhyme
I. Creation
Before the troubles of the world infect the soul
The magic of imagination creates a womb
Devoid of torment, pain, and stress. Rainforests,
Jungles, beaches, other worlds of elation where
You are always the victor in battle, the one
Who finds true love, alpha and omega. Never
Landing in withered trees or dead grass, only
Strong trunks and rolling plains, an ocean
Of stars, a blanket while lying comfy on
Palm fronds floating down calm dreamy
Rivulets of turquoise streams. Locomotives
Wind down vast forest covered country sides
Their tracks gliding to the warm earthy
Humming sound only they can make.
Only now with danger, inherent only to your peaceful fire
Bring you to this happy place, a place desired.
II. A Home all Your Own
In the world of yesterdays and tomorrows
And days lost in the gyre of solstices we
Create a world unto ourselves. Paradises
Lost to the antiquity of children trapped
Inside their adult armor. Lies tipped with
Poison seep into the wells of being, melting
The oil from the canvas’ that dreams are painted on.
Cheap reminiscences flash through tattered wafting
Curtains. Nightmare doppelgangers wait in quarries
of fire breathing mountain giants laying siege to
Rapture found in a good escape. Chemical
Demons like iron maidens brandishing your
Favorite drugs, syringes close in creating
An eerie starry night
To you alone
In a home all your own.
III. Repent to your inner child
To regain a solid footing on the gun deck
Of the warship you’re riding in the flotsam,
Hearken lessons from the playground,
The bruises, nicks, and cuts proudly earned
Ensure the necessary skills are acquired
To embark on adventures of the body.
Hiding in shrouds like an angel
White egret with horsehair-like crests and
Misty wings is the caged fury of joy, her
Wings mightier, beak stronger, eyes sharper
And love unabated from years unvisited.
Swelling seas are sailed, reefs can’t breach
A flying draft when joy carries her burden
Aloft. Hair amber and aflame in the setting sun
Amidst a new sea of clouds, only anchor
In a child’s heart when the dream fades
And the soul returns among the shades.
Categories:
quarries, childhood, introspection, life, mystery,
Form:
A sweet dream,
Horrendous screams
Aborted.
Secret inner fears,
Now to the extreme
Ignited.
Seeking a gleam
Out in the night
I hurried.
Greed- sharpened claws,
Dripping blood
The soil deeply clenched
Dying Planet
Past glorious days helplessly
Mourned.
Droves of lost earthlings
Dark streets
Roamed
Ravenous sharks ,
biophagous marauders
I recognized
Scrumptious baitballs,
fleshy quarries
Oddly ignored
Predators and preys
For a sanctuary
They all fierily looked
Side by side
The street they sorely
lurched
Doomed
For life they desperately
Gasped
Poisonous belch
Their senses to death
Throttled.
Categories:
quarries, natural disasters
Form: