Long Brickwork Poems
Long Brickwork Poems. Below are the most popular long Brickwork by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Brickwork poems by poem length and keyword.
One rain-soaked morning at the mill owner’s behest they assembled on the hillside.
High above his workers’ harsh existence, building commenced on the mansion.
Brick by brick, inch by inch I emerged.
First floor reached, two sturdy hollow legs joined to form my trunk.
Upward they built, two more storeys, the roof and then my finery.
Ornate brickwork topped with a jaunty pot – I was the dandy of the mansion.
In cast-iron fireplaces fires roared sending hot smoke through my body.
I was alive, smoke belched out announcing my arrival.
Days turned into weeks turned into years – I became the house’s backbone.
In those early years small boys would lovingly clean my inners of tar and soot.
But this intimate relationship would soon be replaced by cold mechanical brushes.
Decembers arrived and the children posted their secret letters to Santa.
Once devoid of paper their words flowed along my warm smoky currents upwards and northwards.
In war years I served as a refuge for family treasures lovingly packed in tin boxes.
Some were forgotten and still wait to be rediscovered.
On cold winter’s days my warmth was like a homing beacon.
Rooks, crows, pigeons circled like aircraft waiting to land on my warm terracotta pot.
But alas I was not part of the modern way – my starring days were over.
Birds migrated as metal veins connected to gas fires transported toxic cocktails to the rooftops.
Then gas fires were removed, fireplaces blocked up – stale air lingered deep inside me.
My pot no longer a crowning glory was replaced by a concrete capstone.
And now I’m hidden – my external limb amputated through reroofing.
I’m still, I’m silent but I will always remain chimney.
I, Lazarus*, have seen the brickwork sky,
Its throne is made of night!
Its salt and lime are drying to the eye,
My wandering…
a sound! a rumble, and a flash of light!
HHHHHHH! How sweet first breath!
That tasting life had tasted only death!
And what is THIS, that thuds against my tomb?
Awaken, Heart! And greet thy new-found groom!
Who is HE, that speaks with sudden waking,
As though forgotten dawn was newly breaking?
I cannot know, though memory tells me so,
I am a Man, and not a man of dough!
O bright the door that leads me back to life!
But, bidden! I must change my sleep for strife!
Thank you, heart-friend!
I thought that you’d forgot!
Who made me breathe, ‘I AM!’ when I was not.
Forgive! I cannot hear, my head’s like snow,
AH! That’s it, ‘loose the man, and let him go!'
1/31/2017
__________
*Lazarus was a friend of Jesus Christ, who raised him from the dead
SCENES OF A CARELESS BOYHOOD
The sound of water,escaping dams
willows,old rotten planks,slimy
posts,brickwork,old timber props
wet ditches,sedges and silvery nets
towpaths without gates,horses that
tow barges collared with crimson fringe.
Wheat and thatched cottages and cornstacks
grasses in flower,bogrush bulrush and
teazle,so tall.Bindweed,wild carrot,
hemlock in bloom,cow parsley,plantain
bramble in June.
Poppy,thistle mallow
and hop.Purple heath,hills and swift
running streams,true clear freah and
brisk as champagne about to pop.
phrasis form ( From Constable letters to Rev John Fisher)
*A Phrasis is a structured verse where the poet uses selected prose phrases of another writer’s(not a poet) to compile unique poetry therefrom as a tribute thereto,the word phrasis is Greek for phrase.
Listen to me read this phrasis of mine on youtube under the name ichthys
All ye who enter here
despairing statues of salted liberty,
merging solidarity with Earth’s poor hunger
to range free falling Victorian bricks
and mal-bourne sticks
to land here with now
with all arrived before you
prepared to grace Earth’s healthy breathing space
and time of BrickWork connecting sacred place,
restructuring minds co-infesting recomposing bodies,
bay to mountain swinging resonant designs
recycling Earth’s health-bourne habitation,
celebration
with all entering good humored here
with bad tumored now
climates of each day’s great dissonant transition.
LifeWork EcoLogic draws history written by our stars.
BrickWorld Cathedrals incarnate Earth’s green musings
sung by sunlight’s empowering designers
of MultiCultural ReGenesis.
Seek within our lower reaches
to resolve with sensory roots
reforming crowns
searching hidden ex cathedra gold,
deep beneath not-so-rushing,
lead headed crushing stone.
Conjoin these bricks
of nature’s rich vocation light,
regenerous
religious enbrightenment
to guide our humbled exodus
until we enter here once more
to sing and dance
among Earth’s ReGenerate Cathedrals.
If I was a house I’d be detached
Secure in my walls, untouched
My roof angled against the rain
My windows, tightly shut, secure
My front garden neat, the back
Garden uncut, scruffy, untidy
My brickwork would be red
My front door council blue
My childhood had yellow doors
We never got the blue or green
My driveway would be long
Keeping the world outside
The gates would have a chain
Wooden panels attached to
The side walls, a gate cut
To enter the garden, via a path
A satellite dish juts from the wall
The signal welcome, the world not.
Because, if I was a house, I’d be detached.
David Cox 02/08/22
It is a whodunnit
This Is a mystery
The question is
Who killed me?
Was it my brother
My sister or my mother?
Was it my dear father,
Was I smothered by their love
Or stabbed by their rules
Was I shot by a volley
Of advice that I disagreed with,
Was I drowned in my own
Uncontrollable emotions without
A breath of logic or humility?
The question is
Who killed me?
Is the murder weapon
Hidden in that shed I worked
That billion dollar factory
that stole my time,
Chained me to the chair
And gagged me with protocols,
And kept me churning out
More fodder for their brickwork
In exchange for a small fee
funding my personal needs.
Is my boss sat there smiling
At his deeds, as cold death crept
Over me?
Perhaps the noose was knit
By the devil that lives
In the social chain
Pretend friends, neighbours
Some on social networks,
wielding their own unseen weapons?
The question still remains
Whodunnit
Who killed me?
Still and cold
Lying across the bed
In a pool of despair
My flickering mind,
Had an answer coming through,
The person who killed me
Was one who lived through blame
Closed the door on luck
And wore the place down
In constant complaints.
The person who killed me
Was most likely me!
I
Proudest of graves as get grey mass of moss,
Where goats greedily browse young sprouts still green,
The graves as get grey that had grandeur seen,
Tallest of fames fade fainter with dull gloss.
The seeds of fame sown ere as fail to flower,
As heads of footstones sink in, lose its prime,
As red brickwork darkens with passing time,
Wanton weeds of ill fame inch by inch tower.
As dog-eared pages of proudest of tomes
Fated are to get sold as cast-off waste,
Once yellowed get, get ditched from hoary homes,
Get recycled, melted to pulpy paste,
Once more to be a blank paper again,
Where’s that poet’s song, where his sweet refrain?
II
Nor is poet there, nor his sweet refrain,
All get washed clean— lofty, lyrical words,
To home as return all migrating birds,
Blank sheets look prime for new poetic pain.
So too biggest names die, dies all the fame,
Bravest deeds get dull at a rising rate,
Grey lichens as leech on tomb-stone's nameplate,
And loftiest life turns to dust the same.
A star is not known for its size nor light,
But warmth and life it renders to planet,
We on Earth care not how much our sun’s bright,
But how well it bestows a lifetime’s debt.
Yet, everything gets frayed to suffer loss,
The proudest of fames in time lose their gloss.
__________________________________________
Crown of Sonnets |06.08.2011|
I have spent a lifetime looking down this same old road
With all the memories that it upon me, it has bestowed
I've watched as children play, and grow as some stayed
There were others who left as married, some led astray
With the old brickwork, of the houses remains the same
This old colliery; its gates closed, unemployed to shame
With the skies though were clearer in their lack of smog
My spirits plummeting as thoughts to a better life befog
As men made wearier their sense of purpose in disarray
Wives, and mothers struggling, their men without a pay
Days spent breaking their backs, digging that black gold
Now left dejected, with their souls being so cheaply sold
Honest; working men, their lives are driven to the brink
Some falling to the wayside, turning to the demon drink
Weddings attended, then now built on un-stable ground
A sense of dourness babies heard their new born sound
Funerals mourned; to men gone, well, before their time
As pennies given, to prevent their kid's going into crime
Nothing changes; nothing ever will, forsaken and forgot
Whilst I still stand here still rooted to this same old spot
As idling time, and still looking down this same old road
This legacy of shame, and poverty that on me bestowed
I have nothing against bricks,
Until you use them in place of concrete and asphalt,
Then the cursing begins.
What have councils and governments got against,
Those with rubber tipped walking sticks,
Those with crook hips,
Those with worn shoe soles,
Not to mention the slow and the old,
In other words, the majority, of the population.
One would think the number of accidents due to slippery bricks,
Would give them cause for thought,
But no, it only increases the likelihood of more brickwork at mall entrances,
And outside pharmacies.
A curse on your bricks I say,
Maybe if the housing shortage continues the problem will solve itself,
And I can lift the bricks,
I mean the curse.
the still life paints in water colour as moments dissect the day
an autumn leave falls quietly in tangible peace of the quiet soul
a tranquil hand brushes a humble canvass serene and at peace
memories from summer springs wait for winter and fire place
a gracious log rest on its grate and gathers ashes of yesteryear
ember and glowing desire transcend an amber and transient hue
like a squirrel collecting acorns a poet inks lush pots of gold
an oak tree watches through a window of sash and dark wood
rain showers droplets onto the pane dissolves pain and sorrow
weaves an intricate pattern and frames time season and glimmer
hope enters through a crack in the mantle-piece flickers reflection
onto brickwork and tiles that have survived the test of past times
shadow play suggests a pantomime on picture rails and stucco
imprints harvest and garnering solitude where light parts darkness
it seems to encourage to take a leaf out of nature and offer thanks
to life change ambient eternal growth and impermanent worship
of nature and one day the foliage will be ever so green once again
18th October 2020