Formula Fe2 O3
Iron is just awesome – let’s see!
First it was prehistoric man
Who was always an iron fan
Iron is a third of the earth
Industry is iron by birth
Pritchard designed and Darby made
Iconic Iron Bridge won’t fade
Smelt pig iron from iron ore
Produces cast iron galore
Backbone of skyscrapers, bridges
Organs of cars, washers, fridges
Clever Bessemer carbon gone
Heralded steel for everyone
Mankind’s most ingenious feat
Turning raw earth to steel – so neat!
Iron’s compounds are versatile
No wonder it’s used all the while
Inks, fertilisers, pesticides
Paints, enamels and more besides
Many iron phrases pervade
Each as an English language aid
There’s ironclad, iron curtain
Iron grip and more for certain
We need it in a small amount
For on haemoglobin we count
Open your eyes and look around
Everywhere an iron surround
Iron has magnetic appeal
First place must be iron with steel
June 21, 2025
For the Beatles 'Lay it to Me' song Contest by Charles Messina
The old iron curtain came down
But soon a clown reclaimed the crown
Ruthless and hollow-souled he rose
Now a foul Soviet wind blows
From the east it battered Ukraine
Spreading such cruel and endless pain
The past returns in blackened char
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”
Night stampedes wind-horses.
I edgily negotiate the sharp corners
of swerving shadows.
The hind hoof of a doe
slaps the reflection of my startled face,
the Chevy twitches, plows on -
headlights rake the earth.
From a rear-view mirror
I see myself prone on the asphalt,
terrified limbs still stamping
over a shell-shocked mind.
The deer chased its bones,
disappearing into the sight unseen.
Night dropped its iron curtain.
Later,
I sleep dead-eyed
behind a spinning wheel.
Invigorating rock and roll shakes the morning air
Bandsmen play Comanche, on the marble stairs
People that I used to know, tap their feet and smile
Iron curtain rusty folds melt down for a while
Can’t define now what it was, the end, or the beginning
Not a lot to comprehend left in underpinning
Reasons come and reasons go, morning sun goes high
To obscure in a glow of the springtime sky.
In late April, once it was, nobody remembers
How it came, and how it went, like the dying embers
I shall not return to dust, but I’ve no idea
If the others will, or must humbly disappear.
I’m a momentary blast of the past time air
And it happens now, until I’m no longer there.
Tear down this wall
And put an end to this
Cold War
Said the then
President of the U.S.A
Ronald Reagan
To the U.S.S.R leader
Premier Gorbachev
Only for much later on
Once the Iron Curtain
Had eventually gone
Mr Putin
Said
And rebuild it along our border
With Ukraine again instead
And for the grand opening ceremony
invite and book both
The Hoff
&
Comrade Roger " Red " Waters
To perform a duet of either
Back in the U.S.S.R
Or
Glory Day's
I am the decade of nuclear
Reaction.
I am the Japanese surrender
Reads the caption.
I am the Iron Curtain speech
By Winston Churchill.
I am Congress passes
The G.I. Bill.
I am George Orwell's 1984
Book.
I am the microwave oven,
A quick cook.
I am the Manhattan Project
Takes shape.
I am one of the first ones
To buy duct tape.
I am Hiroshima when we
Drop the bomb.
I am the slinky watch it
Move along.
I am the start of world war
Two.
I am, Pearl Harbor in
The Red, White, and Blue.
I am the Nazi's give up and
Surrender.
I am an American we will
Defend her.
TURBO1904
Magadalene Abakaus be quite certain
lived life behind the Iron curtain
Notwithstanding& for her part
created her much beloved fibre art
There's a trail in the sky,
licked by the moon, like
blood vessel passing the blue,
thin lines on the horizon,
in frontier dust, splitting the land
with fleeting aversions.
In a moment of despair, hazy memories
of bustling tourists ferried to airport, looking down
for Maidan Square, with their velvety eyes, not
the eagle eyes of a new iron curtain drawn by
every missile, their screeching noise whispering a
new tragedy; erased are memories of
east and west harmony, sapped by the hounds of
war, saddled on hypersonic madness.
An atrocity loose
Across state of Ukraine
Annexation Russian
Arms raised in defiance
Against staggering odds
An iron curtain drops
Agamemnon awaits
I get it now... jackasses and elephants are the same
Getting off on control
Getting rich off prolonged misery.
Our collective pain is their superpower.
Our division is their weapon of choice
to maintain that superpower.
Do pray that the masses open their eyes.
Grow brave and wise -unite-ignite.
Become we the people again.
Pull back the iron curtain of OZ.
To expose the charade of self-righteous peacocks
And their plastic levers of logic.
Concocting diversions-shifting blame.
Making rules for the serfs but not for themselves.
The biggest fear of the elitist
is that we, the people, will stand together
demand term limits.
Prune special interests.
They fear we'd slap the mask of humility and restraint
(forged from the bones and blood of the masses)
to their crooked funhouse faces.
...jackasses and elephants... are the same.
We're nothing but pieces of coal to them.
Something to be plucked - pressurized-modified.
Into bling around their middle fingers,
Which they stick far up our asses to bore the spirits from our chests.
Rain upon my lips
Blood within a kiss
An iron curtain
Wrapped around my chest
A pacifist balls up his fists
Ready to fight
Every day is a gift
But every second a curse
One day closer
To the gates of oblivion
My maker stands there
Perplexed by my lack of faith
Perplexed by a lifetime of scars
And a lifetime of denied blessings
A desolate cry dies in my throat
Held captive by loving eyes
Deny thy maker
Deny my maker
Blood within a kiss
Rain upon my lips
The preacher man began to pray
The Lord his lamb to keep
For many souls who drift away
Have fallen in the deep
Beside a welcome bed of hay
The lamb came home to sleep
For all the ones who go astray
Are still the shepherd's sheep
The morning sun came calling soon
And Billy called ahead
The minister said come at noon
When we are out of bed
The ceremony was delayed
Until the cows were fed
The minister was duly paid
And this is what he said
The jealousy which festers more
Is something bad for certain
And trust requires an open door
And not an iron curtain
Your flowers will not ease the pain
Of one whose heart is hurtin'
So please don't drive your spouse insane
Because you won't stop flirtin' . . . .
continued in part 4
Withered and old lay an iron curtain upon my heart
It’s heavily weighted down from a tragedy of sorrow
The light from the sun has been darkened by death
this burden of loss now covering this coffin
with lilies placed above for his purity as a white dove
I stand looking down remembering my brothers love
As I cast these words downward to his closed curtain
I know he will hear them for this I am certain,
we grew together though time as if we were a grapevine
Tied together yet now I pray upon my knees closing,
his curtain for the rest of time no longer to be seen,
but today these memories brings his life back to me,
Peeking through his curtain and looking behind me, for
My favorite brother,
“Tony”
Contest:Curtains of your heart
Sponsored By: Chantelle Anne Cooke
Date Created: 12/21/2020
in reflection
I often contemplate my life
and open the iron curtain of time
and wait in unbroken silence
for past images to appear that still haunt me_
but recently in the deep hush-hush and stillness
I question my rumination_
is it possible these memories are not mine ??
in quietness
and careful consideration
of my childhood tragedies- I wonder
were these even my memories ??
but the result of stories told over the years
that became real from constant repetition_
grandma was a storyteller
and even mom told a good family story !
in noiselessness
and quietude of memory
I have death- grief of my own to ponder
thoughts that now dwell in my adulthood
and these are my own sad memories and sorrow !
time taught me tranquility and serenity
and the peace to accept what is
and the strength to leave memories not mine behind_
___________________________
June 23, 2020
Poetry/Free Verse/in quietude
Copyright Protected, ID 20-1262-464-03
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Reflection in Silence
sponsor, Silent One
Second Place
Crushing humidity
Like an iron curtain
Heave-ho... Lift! ~
World's lungs revive
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