Worth every penny although the pennies were made of adamantine freely smelted in finite charnel kilns, so vested and vain, that cruel shadows balked not against the weekend of endless paraduece though not one such thing was found since the recompense. It's another world, another word, another facet of divulgence but it ends here. This line the last: by inauspicious supplicants the temerity folds over more than eternity, it precludes the none of the course, CCTV look at last for the last time, monster of the manifold, final breath, look your last.
A week of summer heat
with no cooling breeze
or break made bedrooms
like brick kilns
still hot after a day's firing.
You couldn't sleep.
Air conditioning back then
was a couple of loud,
clunking fans that blew
a hum of hot air.
To get relief
we would all sleep outside
on the back lawn on hessian
camping beds that sagged
and creaked even under
a child's weight. The night air
carried a slight damp
and the hint of a breeze.
I can remember laying back
under a blaze of stars,
giddy and full of questions
at such wonder strung
in filaments overhead.
Uncertainty and doubt
had begun to pick
my childish world apart.
I would grip the sides
of the bed possessed by
a strange sense
that if I let go, I would fall
upwards into the sky.
I could never get to sleep
even when a cool came
upon the early morning air.
There were too many
sounds I could not explain
and shadows my mind
would shape into threats.
I would creep back inside,
back into a walled safety
and the heat.
The skyline merges with the sky.
As I observe kilns and ovens high,
Their smoke rising up to the clouds,
In a heated chamber, pollution enshrouds
The furnace roars with fiery heat.
And I wonder if our planet will ever beat
The effects of industry and its ways
As we continue to burn and blaze.
But as I look closer, I view debris,
Efforts made to clean and free
The air, the water, and the land
As we strive to piddle a keener stand.
From renewable energy to eco-design,
We must collaborate together and align.
To create a sustainable future for all,
Where progress and nature can stand tall.
So let us not withdraw from the fight.
For a world that is clean and bright,
For every action we engage in today,
Will shape the world in a punter way.
Written: June 6, 2023
The moon shone on the water
Dyed ochre by the iron mines.
Centuries of men have toiled
In trenches and in chines.
Carving through the sheer rock face
To tunnel under hills
Canals to link the land of wealth
To the cities of the mills.
Airless channels deep below
While all above is calm
And death could be a breath away
Placed in the way of harm.
Pick and shovel toiled away
Through millstone grit and stone
Canals for coal to fuel the kilns
Firing plates for every home.
And now two hundred years or more
Have passed and times have altered
For Instead of barges lain with coke
Are cruisers strewn with boaters.
The working boats have been replaced
By holidaymakers vessels
And the tunnel stands as testament
To the stone masons true mettle.
Dear old woman who lives in a shoe
The dear old woman who’s house is a shoe
For Christmas she doesn't know what she can do
She can't afford beer for seasonal cheer
And her kids will have no presents this year.
On top of it all her cupboard is bare
She looked in her purse and nothing was there
Hungry mouths she can't feed has her in tears
Yesterday's dreams have become kilns of fears.
What's more her love interest's gone away
He just could not stand her another day
The home is too cold and way far too old
With no room for all who live in the fold.
He told her that he never would come back
He wanted to live in a decent shack
He'd found soothing balm in another's arms
A beautiful lady of many charms.
That is what hurt her inside most of all
More than dear old Humpty Dumpty's big fall
No King's horses, not even the King's men
Could put her heart back together again.
3rd December 2020
Amphorae, beautifully crafted,
Delicate, exquisite, fire-glazed,
Heated in jumbo kilns,
Lovely molded necks,
Opaque pigments,
Quartzite residue-
Symbolic, timeless, utilitarian
Valued- with xanthic yellow zirconium
***
October 22, 2019
F T I series 5 beauty
Brian Strand, sponsor
***
Poetry notes:
Poetry form: ABC - In this instance, a poem in which every word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The first word begins with A, the second with B, etc.
alighting
bees
ceding
deeply
easily
foraging
garnishing
homesteads
into
joyous
kilns
lithely
moving
nourishment
over
parading
queen
routinely
screening
their
unborn
valiantly
weaning
xiphoid
young
zygotes
Dark place
my place
standing water
violin frogs...so very quiet.
Where is my voice
where are the lungs
flung into wells of fire
another day for the kiln
another day somewhat overdone.
the meaning of "whole" has paled,
half a heartbeat shy of "it"
karma has raked its orange teeth
on the nape of all regret
parched, dark raiders on desert hills
honing golden knives
slinging crimson shrills
while I collect water in paper palms,
bartering sips for a life
my place
dark place
heart quilled by golden shards
standing water
violin frogs so very very quiet
Platform breezes,
spitting rain,
red brick station,
vintage train.
Take a seat,
relax with ease.
Conductor's voice,
'Your tickets please'
Time to leave,
the whistles cry,
release of brakes,
hydraulic sigh.
Boiler stoked,
the pressure's high,
clouds of steam
feed hazy sky.
Pace increases,
prospects vast,
golden sun,
then shadows cast.
Tunnel vision,
fortunes passed,
speed illusion,
double fast.
Transport systems
side by side,
railways clatter,
waters glide.
Broken buildings
all but hide
industries that
sadly died.
Sleeping coalmines,
unforged steel,
stillness grips
the potter's wheel.
Once fired kilns
no more anneal.
Unemployment
fears turn real.
Dereliction,
overgrown.
Shattered lifestyles,
hope unsown.
City's future
lies unknown.
Lives to whet
on worn out stone.
Climb aboard the yester-train
to days of work, then back again.
S.Tideswell 2nd May 2009
when once my clay hands began to harden
under the potters wheeled sun
i turned to reach for my shadow
but found only a basket of dried
yesterdays and tomorrows.
when once my clay feet began to harden
through quarries of stone and silt,
impermeable to all water but not to ink.
i decorated myself with a stylus in a
tattoo shop on st johns and 49th st.
when once my clay head began to harden
kilns and flames were all servants to
my thoughts and my porcelain pupils
brought light to all like a holy relic.
There was the hunger
and suicide.
In favor of my brutal truth
or virtue of my failure,
I do not want any comments on my trauma.
Morality has a dubious equation
with power, provoking my anger.
The days were full of abandoned kilns.
No more shaping of containers
in which one can put the moon,
and honey and roses.
Everything was turning brown
with infinite, sulphur smelling teeth
ready to bite into golden flesh.
Convicts behind the walls were playing
with mirrors to throw the light on slick
towers. Death was laughing, waiting on the trees,
eating black berries.
And I was forced to taste the blood of sky
with sodium –
in sanctum sanctorum.
SATISH VERMA
There was the hunger
and suicide.
In favor of my brutal truth
or virtue of my failure,
I do not want any comments on my trauma.
Morality has a dubious equation
with power, provoking my anger.
The days were full of abandoned kilns.
No more shaping of containers
in which one can put the moon,
and honey and roses.
Everything was turning brown
with infinite, sulphur smelling teeth
ready to bite into golden flesh.
Convicts behind the walls were playing
with mirrors to throw the light on slick
towers. Death was laughing, waiting on the trees,
eating black berries.
And I was forced to taste the blood of sky
with sodium –
in sanctum sanctorum.
SATISH VERMA
I am the son of Britain and Californian
Reared of Europe and the American Revolution
Progeny of English countryside and Frisco Bay
Yet despite all I have come to understand
The puzzle is a hard picture to assemble
I find my disposition within those lost Victorian halls
And the desire comes from those longing for freedom
My eyes are those of the chiseled line of Fuller’s
My patience from the Finnish stonecutters Seppa
My fiery spirit forged within the kilns of the Rowe’s
As I search I find a Knight of the Crusades in my past
Or a seventeenth century daughter of Salem Shipbuilders
Painstakingly their faces have come to light in recognition
They are of my flowing blood and strength of bone
These people both ancient and contemporary define me
A multitude of bonds of many traveled roads walked before me
Within my veins flow the rivers crossed
For now it is my honor and burden to speak of and remember
All of you who laid the highways and past before me
At your feet I sit in thanks…for giving definition to this man.
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