Best Sawmill Poems
Mom has always loved antiques
I have never asked her why
Perhaps it's the connection to the past
Maybe the craftsmanship
The smell of ancient wood
The curves
The fact that they were built to last
She turned a passion into a business
A few small pieces in her living room
A sign on a door
Interesting how businesses are born
Bob there by her side
Together building on her dream
There once was an old sawmill
Where men had worked with their hands
Hard work had its demands
Each one did what he could
Their strength remains
Locked within the wood
Those same hands had built mom's home
Over one hundred years ago
Time dripped on it didn't slow
Mom's home became the perfect place
To celebrate the past
Her home and business
Built from things that were made to last
The business grew
Taking over the home
Visits from patrons
Calls on the phone
Busy all the time
No space for them to be alone
It became time
For them to expand
They looked to the future
The life they planned
Built on their historic land
A new addition built from old wood
Soaring ceiling
Above them stood
I remember the beams
Spectacular
From an old barn hewn from fir
Lifted on Bob's wide strong back
Formerly they had been just a stack
A one of a kind home
Filled with love
With bedrooms and landing up above
The kitchen was the centre piece
A place to gather
Filled with love and peace
Love of the past
Hope for the future
Has alway been a part of her
Together melded and celebrated
As a result I appreciate
The solid
The values
The ingenuity
Forever engrained in my blood
My respect for the old
My admiration of antiques
Remnants of the business still remain
The building sold
Mom loves going to auctions
She still sells at local Antique Markets
Sadly Bob has passed on
Thankfully mom has moved on from her sad
She too is made of stronger stuff
Not unlike
Her beloved
Antiques
An old poem and this one is about old things.
For Broken Wings' contest. Written April 13 2013
Think of us oft, when you travel afar,
On orders protecting, lives we enjoy;
You and your pals, family superstars,
We miss you every time, you must deploy.
And while you’re away, the kids will move on,
School, sports, church—and nightly prayers for their Dad;
Strong daily living; a life marathon,
Until your return, our love ironclad.
Many folks benefit from your good will,
They honor volunteer service no doubt;
And when you return, back to the sawmill,
Our own return to normal, comes about.
Thank you. We love you. You are our hero.
Our resistance to your service—zero!
August 17, 2018
With parties abounding
Why stay home alone
Your Mon and your Father
Can’t see that you’ve grown
No talent or accent
Are you really quite plain
No thunder or lightning
Just a 13 year rain
The pressure to join in
It’s really intense
Obtain the right symbols
On any pretense
No flash zoom or dazzle
You’ll not make the grade
Until you’re prepared
For the great masquerade
Trade referent for symbol
And true wealth for cash
Make failures flamboyant
And cultivate dash
Just live for the moment
It’s all that you’ll get
Don’t think back or ponder
You’ll only regret
That what you must lay down
Exceeds what you’ll be
Just wood in a sawmill
Not a lush growing tree
The day that we left port, to new horizons we would sail
Knowing the dangers ahead, seafarers in the end we would prevail
Our journey from the Highlands from Inverness my home town
To Brazil in South America a new life to settle down
With charts of old we sail the seas
Passing the Antialtair Seamount with hardly a breeze
Our destination set, half way through our trip
Bridgetown, Barbados, on my elegant ship
We noticed a change a difference, on these high seas
Many nautical miles I've sailed but I've never seen ones like these
The sky had turned a colour I'd never seen before
Sporadic luminescent blues, like the beaches of the Azores
Our lookout suddenly shouts, dark shapes drift in the clouds
Before too long there is screaming, even the men cry loud
Swooping winged creatures descend, mouths agape with luminescent blues
Their tails whipping the swells, lacerating the waves we sail through
For many hours they probed as they swooped, a blue ball hovering over my ship
This is certainly a voyage to remember, to our new life on this trip
We finally reach Bridgetown, Barbados, my family and crew still in fear
When we sighted this land in the sun, we were deafened by our cheers
We reported in to the authorities, our run in with creatures unknown
They mentioned the Bermuda Triangle, and we were not alone
They have many reporting such as we, even fleets disappearing from view
To reach here as we have done, we are lucky, just one of a few
We thanked them for their assistance, as we set sail for our journeys end
To Vitoria a city so new, to our sawmill, our new life, Amen
As our world around us grew open, more tales and stories were told
Conclusions were never developed, maybe one day it will all unfold
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/fantasy-16.php
April 23rd,
The seductive smoky weed descending from Kabiru swept through my nostril
Cracky creepy shanties sneaking
Pulsating stench sneering from gutters
Churning and choky smoke oozing from the BRT buses
Area boys bullying
Police officers begging for spiritual currency
Perputuality and patriotism is our uniform
Confusion descending from the State House
Fashola’s spectacles is missing
Tinubu is snoring
Okada’s boys on rampage
Mama Risikat with assorted bottles of combined
I embraced a cup to shine my eyes
I embraced street live
Growing up in the hood
Swimming with the skally wags and hood rats
My dreams are illegal in Lagos
A meter from my nose
Is a sawmill and smiling garbage as high as Babel
Emeka’s blaring speakers echoing;’ do me, I do you, God no go vex’
Beside me, is a 2 storey house
The city of scam
‘Boys go hamma’
Unliag coconut heads with their effizy
Adeola’s gap-tooth snowballing
My naughty pen crying, ‘chop my money’
At dawn, the muezzin whispering’ Allahu Akbar’
O’ Lagos, your womb is polluted and punctured
Your dreams cut through third mainland bridge
Swaggering and swooning it trails
Lagos, a confuse city.
Written by Awoh Kingsley
Dedicated to Adeola
26th October, 2012
His knowledge was his untapped wellspring,
After 93 years of learning anew;
He valued knowing something about everything,
From construction & farming, to baseball & screws.
Early in life, a dairy farm taught him,
To think on his feet, with vast common sense;
Learning math at the sawmill, he estimated lumber,
And rebuilt old motors, appliances & fences.
For years he delivered, automobile parts,
To Tar Heel cities & Outer Banks towns;
Till one day, Wayne County rewarded his smarts,
With leadership to run, their buildings and grounds.
A Lion's Club/Odd Fellow—active for decades,
Making differences in the lives of many;
A loyal church member, a Jack of all trades,
Directing great efforts, that helped countless plenty!
Later in life, he started Smith’s Crafts,
With Logs that told Weather--Cow Clocks that told time;
Wrote a book on a bell, he loved to autograph,
Reading local history aloud, literary passion sublime!
His legacy is people, warm and loving,
Celebrating them in visits near and far;
Shelton Eugene Smith, Sr. a one-of-a-kind,
Honored by many, remembered by all!
(In honor & Memory of one of the world’s most fascinating men)
alone now. swaying
shadow on the ground too crooked
for the sawmill
one family
five children..
rabid dog bites dad
death angel visits
widow left to fend...
children's life hard
one pat of butter
slipped through four fluffy biscuits..
poverty
child works picking peas
goes to the field everyday...
fabric bought for dress
My mother's father was bitten by a rabid dog
the doctor order shots for him and told him
do not get out and get hot just take it easy.
He went to move the sawmill and was taken
ill with the disease..He died leaving my mother's
mother to rear five children ages 6 months to
12 years on her own..Life was hard..This was in
1905..She said that she would not marry and
have another man over her and her children.
Why did our fathers’ fence fell
And the fortunes of our motherland thrown into the well?
-Like a veteran midwife with the history of abortions
We have failed to hatch the golden eggs of our pride and passions.
Why did our laws turn flaws
And charlatans made our charters grow claws?
-Like the bright beam of utopia before reality
Light have failed to go beyond the dark cobweb of our fantasy
Why did our lands turn islands
And the gloomy cloud shielded the truth of reality from our minds?
-Like a plagiarized poem before a forensic expert
Our political spies cannot fathom the faulty tone in our country’s concert.
Why did our sages’ pages fade?
And our green garden grows too thick for the saintly spade?
-Like the termite that is sentenced to die in sawmill
Corruption has glued itself to our land and blown up our bill.
Time! I say time will tell,
One day the snail will not be shielded by its shell
-Like the shadow behind the man that leaves his shelter ,
The belittled bush meat will hunt and catch the hunter.
(An Addingham Poem)
With the strength of
gentleness, sparrows make love
upon the windowsill,
frigid glass pane pulsates
within the pageant of nature,
numerous battle scared plumage
float wanting, towards earthly cracks
that conceals another world, where
rain and sleet beat down a
forest of subversive weeds,
if only to perjure
hope and fortitude.
The wind! Screams imperfections,
orchestrates the misery of the
telegraph wire, summons
the hardy, those across the
sawmill dam, there where the
village sons live on, as faceless
images upon the park epitaph.
The moon abandons the paperboy
hides behind a turbulent haze,
the greyness segregating
the dawn from the night,
as a hundred kettles sing
behind dimly lit backyard windows,
and a hundred harmonies
perfume, the bowel of the tippler.
Row upon row of decrepit
doorsteps host resident jugs, those
that waits in anticipation of the ladle,
whose wholesome contents still
encompass the warmth of the beast.
Through the mist, a stony siren
executes the industrial anthem,
a musical excursion into pain
and manipulation, a weaving shed
that creates a spinneret
of dreams, a threshold to one’s hopes.
“Yet! Given nothing more, than a
wry sense of insecurity.”
© Harry J Horsman 1999
Confidence is a choice,
Preponderance of undue ignorance,
Tethered in tandem to wheels of spiny leathery,
Bumpy hairs click back at a finger’s flick.
Rotations earned from itself, but more,
Tread marks lead the way,
Devouring grounds of consummate cortex,
Until tracings are unchallenged by craft.
Back and forth, a sawmill slices,
Though it’s only imagined.
Inside mind and spine seen when,
The body refuses to move again.
Which corridor of counting oneself by the shelf,
Bound leather to me be shown?
Pores of proportions, round algebra,
Confines Gaussian blurs to the grown.
I choose that which nature gifts, the will to change the mind,
Plastic melts and pressure sticks to those whose self is kind.
Well he wakes up early,
when the sun breaks ‘cross the land.
Then he goes out on the river,
high up on the logs he stands.
For counting twenty years now
he’s been a river-driving man.
And he don’t do anything else…
He drives that timber
down the river with the flow.
He always knows the river
will determine where it goes.
When it jams upon the curves,
he clears it out with a pole.
Dangerous job too…
Sometimes the logs they
get snagged up on the rocks.
If he don’t go get ‘em,
the whole river they will block.
But the sawmill is awaiting,
and he knows they’re on the clock.
Time is money, boys, time is money…
More than once now,
this man has fell right in.
The half-frozen water,
it starts him shivering.
One day he may test the river,
and the river it might win.
River gets like that when it’s mad…
One say some hippies
got a rule made by the state.
No more drives on the river,
it’s ‘too dirty’ and ‘not safe.’
From now on the lumber
will move by trucks and trains.
Hippies ruin everything, don’t they?
Now he sits at the diner,
shootin’ bull with Norma Jean.
He goes down to the fair,
and he wins at the log-rolling.
It just ain’t the same though,
and nobody is hiring.
That’s always how it is…
These days we got hipsters,
of lumberjacks they are a fan.
Everywhere you see flannel,
but not a single calloused hand.
The world it has no place for
an old river-driving man.
Yes, the world it has no space for
an old river-driving man…
My first antiques were bought at an auction after I was divorced
They were inexpensive, great value and talked to me
They gave me comfort at a time when I needed comfort
Using them, they became old familiar friends
I grew up in an era where new was unknown, so these familiar friends became part of
who I had become
I then met a wonderful man, who became my soul mate and though he scorned
my old furniture, he soon began to realize their worth
His modern teak did not have the value my old pieces retained
A job loss made a business begin and Antiques at the Sawmill was born
My old familiar became the source of our income and many old familiar pieces came
and went through the years
We were blessed to have so many people looking for the old and while purchasing,
many of these people became our friends
Inadvertently, my old familiar things enriched our lives as did the many wonderful
people who purchased items through the years
We never know what will come into our lives but we should never not open a door to
see what is beyond.
It shows that sometimes necessity becomes much more than that, it leads us to a new
and worthwhile life
I know that we were richly blessed because of what started as a necessity
I will always thank God for showing us the way.
My father’s timber array arrived on an
overloaded Diamond Reo flatbed.
It dumped oak scraps, leafless dead-woods,
inspiring last metamorphosis to
warming fires come winter’s weather.
Empty, truck leaves then heaves
into a scrubby alley
squeezing by barely.
With its narrow fit made
it disappearing through a backyard gate
into a cloud of its own making
belched from two shaking
upright tailpipes.
Bark cull, coppice slats, saw food pilled
to near roof high. This sawmill refuge awaits
stacking sequent, once cross-sawed
and set to a suitable size for stove fodder.
I am father's volunteer; I am the master stacker
of wand-wood. With my bow-saw in hand,
I look not on labor of hours nor days, but eternities.
In the eyes of evolution's lies I see ancient youths,
countless fellows of ten-years-old like me
and leap with them to the task of cave dwellers.
Let us put together a montage
Of aromas…In our minds
Perhaps of Juicy Fruit gum
Perfume, sweat or of Roses
Of rain on hot pavement
Of tar, surf and the Seaside
Of candies, pastries baking
Of gun smoke…and loam
And any and every other aroma that
Wafts you back home
Then add to this construct
The sense of touch:
Of textures both smooth and rough
The feel of soft skin
Breezes that caress one’s face
The feel of heat and cold
The texture of silk…and lace
The hardness of marble
The warm flush of pleasure
And the cold ,cold feel of steel
Now add to this assemblage
An assortment of sights:
Of Moonlight on snowdrifts
And star sprinkled skies
And the amazing innocence
In an infant’s eyes
The smile on loved one’s faces
The wrinkles of age…
the dimples of youth
The sight of wondrous places
Now affix to this conjured up collage
The sense of sound:
The peal of bells…of whispered sighs
Echoes in dells…and sad muffled cries
Of sudden sharp reports
The sounds of winsome song
Sawmill snores
And sniffs and snorts
That endure the whole night long
Of soft peeps of baby birds
To raucous cry of crows
The urgency in lover’s pleas
The passion in their words
This montage in truth
Is like an iceberg
whose mass lies mostly ‘Neath the sea
And is both compromised
And comprised
of both truths and lies
…That we call our memory…