Best Smokestacks Poems
The two-lane road stretches
through a shimmering glaze
to the horizon, passing
smokestacks of mesas spewing
clay and maize in vaporous mass.
I hear the sibylline whisper of rain
through emerald brush
and serpentine hiss
of slithering sand.
The acrid smell permeates
evergreen and purple sage,
carries the aroma
with fine dust.
I point my thumb west,
a prayer for a willing traveler
to whisk me away
from the cumulative downpour
when the desert paint
floods umber in the gullies.
Categories:
smokestacks, color, imagery, rain,
Form:
Ekphrasis
Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire
smokestacks, waffles, pansies, people,
and purple sunsets.
Carl Sandburg
PURPLE PANSIES
A pensive-pansy bouquet,
vibrant diffusion of lot,
Borscht belt, Catskill-sunshine core,
platonic petals of thought.
Purple pansies are childhood,
of God’s wide-eyed creation,
innocence in royal cloak,
a roused imagination.
Deft purpleness recollects,
not grandma’s frilly feast days -
a sixty’s mod Easter dress,
painted nails of royal praise.
Fresh fairyland apogee
o’er green-sea, circular bowl.
Petal’s shades of light and dark -
a poet’s purple, vibrant soul.
6/1/2022
Purple Flowers Poetry Contest
used Rhymezone and HMS
Categories:
smokestacks, flower,
Form:
Rhyme
Government officials, chasing me
A peaceful Naked being dance on the street
Woke from a nightmare being chased by blind eyeballs draped in flags,
City on fire, smokestacks, meat trucks, doctors of insanity.
I came to a decision
Gonna stay here in my Naked skin
I don't think there is a promised land out there anymore,
Gonna stay here in Cap d' Adge, France.
I say some prayers that the children of the world have a future
Where Nudism is accepted and not shyed upon
I ponder to why the human species shy away from something they came with,
Humans keep making this same mistakes over and over.
Luckily in this era the hate just keeps getting lesser and lesser
But erring on side of the positive
Put out more awarness about the loving community of Nudists my fellow Nudist,
Put out more faith in Nudism as it liberates.
Categories:
smokestacks, america, art, body, poems,
Form:
Free verse
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn,
as sounds of morning break unearthly still,
arising to the day, some life goes on,
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air,
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was, is slow in pure descent,
and longing for the earth turning below,
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train,
awhistling, here come the dead again.
© ron Wilson aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
Categories:
smokestacks, abuse, betrayal, death, holocaust,
Form:
Sonnet
I've been doing my current job for 32 years; lots of travel, places and people. A few memories stick out; my own Book of Hours, it would be almost one per year.
The first job I was on was Four Corners Power Plant, near Farmington, New Mexico, on Navajo Nation land, where the turbines brought electricity to the people, and the smokestacks brought death to the indigo plants in the area. Shiprock, the volcanic mountain, stands to the west. I was working the nightshift, and one day went to see it. After sleeping in the morning, I drove west along US Highway 64, toward the mountain. On the way, I passed a slower moving vehicle, a red pickup truck with lots of people in it, four in the cab, five or six sitting in the back. Locals, Native Americans, Navajos.
The mountain was superb in shadowed relief as the afternoon sun went lower. I got good pictures in the clear air, under nothing but blue sky. At 8 p.m. I'd have to be back in to work, so the time came to return east toward the hotel. After a few miles there were flashing lights in the distance; as I got closer I saw they were Navajo Tribal Police vehicles.
There had been an accident - the pickup truck I had passed had run off the road. It was where the highway went through a cut in the hills, red rock walls rising on either side, red sand and dust below. Bodies wrapped in white sheets, out of place against the red; blindingly white, impossibly white, shouldn't be.
I drove past the scene very slowly, and now I don't know if the three Navajo Police officers were moving or not. I see them standing stone still, burdened, slightly bent over, heads looking at the ground, with that big, beautiful blue sky above them. Shock and sadness stepping down from above, grief being born. Navajos are quiet mourners, and I wonder if in the great cycle of all things, of which death is a part, the spirits were then walking away, softly, across their hearts. Law enforcement is no stranger to traffic accidents, and tragic loss of life is sometimes seen, but this was more - this was their people.
Categories:
smokestacks, bereavement, death, native american,
Form:
Prose
[starboard port]
the ocean—an onyx plate predawn—
somnambulant ships preen with a swag of
warning lights
massive hulls: cargo ships, flotillas, tankers,
passenger liners loll; red lights buss
the somber slate of sky—spangled strings of
bawdy bulbs on the riggings—pole dance
beside the quay—ridged, behemoth smokestacks
toy with the flames of gold and white
[cabin’s lav—occupied]
waiting, my mind trundles to funeral pyres
Viking ships, then returns to marvel at
on-coming airport pot lights which
upstage the walled gasps
[very occupied]
the exodus to Singapore crescendos
we land—manned the plane performs
a ritual slide—ash and steam spew from
stacks of the other perpendicular
members
Touch down.
[the door opens]
First Published by Shooter Literary Magazine Spring of 2017
Categories:
smokestacks, love,
Form:
Free verse
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
© Ron Arbuthnot aka ron wilson aka Vee Bdosa
Categories:
smokestacks, abuse, holocaust, war,
Form:
Sonnet
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
Categories:
smokestacks, lossautumn, longing, life, morning,
Form:
Sonnet
This is Graduate School
What do you expect?!!
This is graduate school!!
The girl, glowed in her importance!!
This work was important!!
And who did he think he was, shirking work!
Our importance is pivotal.
For without importance, we’d have no artifacts.
And our importance oozes from smokestacks and chokes the very breath we breathe!
And our importance keeps us safe from the Jones’ below us, those miscreants!!
And our importance makes us real!!
We put a man on the moon!
I am that I am! I am MAN!!!
And my towers reach to heaven and scream, “I no longer have need of you!”
But at night, some nights at least.
I look up to the sky,
And realize that I am stuck on a spinning rock, with no way out, and I have no idea where
I came from or where I am going?
And I know panic!
Categories:
smokestacks, satire
Form:
Blank verse
Everywhere I go, industry dominates this world
Vehicles run on diesel,
Massive industrial complexes have many factories
That create a skyline of smokestacks
The heavens are filled with a gray only we have created
Man and machine have come together
Like haywire to wire,
Generating a power countries only dream of
Diesel, our main power source,
Allows massive airships with smokestacks of their own
To block out the sun
Nations around the world use machines for industry, war and everyday life
Without diesel,
It seems the planet will come to a complete standstill…
As an inhabitant of this industrialized world,
None of what I see around surprises me…
For I have lived in the midst of man’s mechanical reign
All of my days
But I often worry and question our remaining humanity
Some of us have grown prideful and cold
Nations have fought us
Merely to prove their weapons are stronger and better
At times I even wonder if we could
Possibly find other ways to go about our lives—
Like alternative fuel sources
Maybe it seems like the world is industrializing too fast
But no one seems to notice that after the Great War,
Industry spread like a weed that would not stop growing,
No matter what you did to it
One must begin to wonder
How long this kind of life can possibly last
I long to feel the sun on my back,
And to breathe in fresh air untouched by the fumes I know too well
Can we use what we have,
Can we use what we live for,
To build each other up,
Rather than destroying all in our path?
Shall we put our hearts into the cores of our unfeeling machines,
Or will we turn to Mother Earth with reverence and passion?
Taking and never giving back,
How can we expect our planet to provide and sustain us?
August 20th, 2014
Collaberation by Justin Connor and Laura Breidenthal
Two questions to ponder:
What do you think will become of this dieselpunk world?
How can this message apply to life in your own society?
Categories:
smokestacks, appreciation, character, courage, growth,
Form:
Narrative
Smokestacks are blowing.
Polluting the air we breathe
Perfect air. Wasted.
Categories:
smokestacks, political
Form:
Haiku
At the 5:00 whistle
When the sunset in late November
Is less light and more molten
Like a blast-furnace window
Glowing above the highway home
Goo spilling from its sparkling ladle
Bent
At the off-ramp’s arthritic elbow
The city smolders
Under
The backs and braces of its groaning bridges
Like a half smoked cigarette
Crushed under the heel of a boot
An entire city is snuffed out.
The Man, my father, comes to this setting sun
As a welder
Flipping down his black mask
For his last day at work
With stars still tracing cross his eyes
And his factory-floor poems loose in his head
Like nuts and bolts rattling in his toolbox.
His visiting grandchildren
Sent from the Coasts for Thanksgiving
Clung like empty holsters to his massive thighs
May someday think Grandpa, what did you do with your life?
He wants to kill them
Kill them all
Lick his pink slip like a Christmas card envelope
And hang himself
With a drill
Still
Plugged into his whining hand
But on his last day home
With smokestacks steaming like gray volcanoes
The sunset remains wondrous to him
The Makar the Creator
He envisions a flower molded from bronze
Bloomed and shaped from his callused hands.
Categories:
smokestacks, america, change, courage, integrity,
Form:
Free verse
Herded humans
Sweltering trains
Dead cargo
Suffering remains
Gunshot glory
Spurting spite
Guarded genocide
Barbwire lights
Warsaw widows
Stripped of food
Numbered days
Ribs that protrude
Anesthetized surgeons
Screaming knife
Smoldering smokestacks
Vacating life
Conveyor belt corpses
Rolling into ravines
Six million taken
Will no one intervene
Categories:
smokestacks, death, history, loss, sympathy,
Form:
Quatrain
Smoke drifts from the smokestacks
On dark and gloomy days
Just before the first rains of Summer
Crates are collected and stacked
And thrown onto the conveyor belt
So they may disappear into the fortress
A robot sings songs of yesteryear
And humans simply stand by and observe
Give these jeering men some credits
Lest they starve without work
With their blossoming bellies
But they sure love Conservatism
Starving mothers fling underweight babies
Into the jaws of an unforgiving sea
Because they can't take care of them
But neither could they spare them
Remember when a wise man once said
Elections have consequences
A tower is built slowly from the ground up
It starts off small but becomes massive over time
Just like petty rants from the bird's nest seem small
Until they collect over time and form dogma
An entire generation tainted by evil
And the devil himself is blushing
Alas drown your sorrows at the beach
And swim in a sea of glittering garbage
Because this great sea sure does flow
Where thriving cities once stood
But now they reside deep underwater
Entombed by science denial
And for every peace loving Christian
Is one who spreads dissension like disease
Who thrives on stapling gays to the cross
As if it were 1965 in the redneck south
And in truth every person who lets it happen
Is just as guilty as the transgressors
When the good lord said love thy neighbor
Could he have known they'd cast the first stone
Upon all the liars and all the sinners
Just peel apart the jowls of the maiden sinner
And find the seven deadly sins cowering
From a man dressed in a burlap sack
Patience for appeasers is something I lack
And as I rip away the images of this distorted future
I look to the future in two years from now
And I just hope deep in my heart we've had enough
Because at first 2016 gave me a future to believe in
But now Morons Are Governing Again
Categories:
smokestacks, america, betrayal, conflict, political,
Form:
Free verse
suffocating,
sooty smoke
swirls silent,
serpentine;
coils around,
hisses above
crude contours
of blackened
smokestacks;
strangles the air,
dims morning light,
darkens ashen fog:
toxic smog.
Categories:
smokestacks, urban
Form:
Free verse