Long Furnace Poems
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Purgatorial Perceptions
By Mark D. Stucky
In the basement, I heard fluttering sounds
coming from inside the old chimney.
Cautiously opening the clean-out trap,
I came nose-to-beak with a panicked bird.
Having fallen down the depths
of the narrow furnace flu,
it now lacked sufficient strength and space
to escape through the constricted ascent.
With gloved hands, I reached in
to grab the imprisoned sparrow.
It pecked and struggled in my grip
because in its terrified mind
mine were the hands of death,
plucking it from purgatorial confinement
to surely crush its desperate hope
and condemn its soul to aviary hell.
Carrying my captive outside,
I opened my hands to the sky,
and the set-free sparrow flew
into tree-top liberty
but without giving me
even a thankful tweet.
But can any mind fully comprehend
crises as dangerous opportunities?
Or that a frying pan exit path
might lead through fire into freedom?
Or that seemingly certain death
could actually bring salvation?
(First published in Agape Review, 28 July 2022. See also my poems “Consider the (Dreaming) Birds” and “God Around the Corner.”)
(Image by Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay.com.)
A small hair-thin gap; this got widened like the Oman Gulf;
Life, as though within the mouth of a ghost, did get engulf;
No look; no smile; no speech; deadly movements performed like plays,
Physique and psyche moved like monsters, in deserted ways...!
Did we have unfeasible assumptions and surmises?
Like water and vessels, do our hearts change shapes and sizes?
When you happened to fall, I failed to hold you, I know well,
Have you, at my rises and falls, ever at my side, dwell...?
You counted your money; I, mine; we never counted ours,
Spending each one in our way we established our powers;
Our promises failed us; from fidelity, we were far,
Each bore in our hearts the failure of our former love's scar...!
The bedroom was our furnace; we yearned to be out of it,
From formalities and show-offs, yet, why could we not quit?
Intimacy meant just impulsive expressions of beasts,
While our bodies met, our inner minds had their other feasts...!
We're, thus, dear, in physique and psyche unbridgeable chasm,
Unbridgeable? Nay. Bridgeable with some enthusiasm;
All that we need is the willingness to live together,
Bearing a bit of the hardship of each changing weather...!!!
19 June 2023
I feared heights when I was a kid,
& as an adult, women and responsibilities are what I fear,
If heaven is in the skies,
Maybe one day I'll meet Him on Jebel Amianin,
When the urge to think,
Draws me close to Him.
It's weird how of all the million pages in a newspaper,
Children only scan the colourful pages,
Funny how I used to be that kid too,
Carefree and excited,
Yet now,
I can't help hating familiar places that once held dear memories,
Growth has two things,
Disappointments and misquoted statements,
They say bees flea smoke,
But what if smoke is the most polite language that tells the bees go away,
We sleep with hope of a colourful tomorrow,
But when we wake,
Tomorrow is a yesterday and the next a tomorrow.
Sometimes my future is the miraculous Mosaic bush in flames,
& I have high hopes a ram will appear and I'll I'll walk out the furnace,
But every waking morning,
None of these hopes,
Comes out of the smoke.
Now I grow from strength to strength just to fill someone's shoes,
For expectations— which always did exist
And needs, of no name— of many names,
Just like I'd drop a tear in the ocean,
And be tasked to find it.
A pair I can appreciate about growth,
Is that I can sew words and make a dress of it
& Coffee isn't off my boundary anymore,
So yes,
I'm living the best I can— one day a boy—the next a man.
It roars thunder and bellows a storm,
it's vengeful like scorned gods.
A gory feature of demonic forms!
And I see it more and more envelop,
everything about me.
Everything sanity marshals!
Till words said to me,
get repelled in possessed denial
and all innuendo overted towards me,
gets ejected with stern and grotesque facials!
And into a cold being, denial turns me
and makes me neurotic, yet leaves my intentions serial!
"Who I am," becomes totally strange to me,
and my essence negates all barriers of life.
Self loathe understating the strife!
And with depression lodged firmly in gripe,
I become a "with nothing to lose" type of brother!
No shame but a thirst for blood:
the plight of a crusading Aquarian knight!
A torture you wouldn't wish to witness.
And so if ever that low again I sink,
Hell's furnace will forge my knife.
And anger, rage and agonizing pain will capture my gist!
Pride, failure and a courageous fight,
will boldly describe my Hellenic might!
One where not even a "child god" could title my ego!
A beastly strength with canon devastation,
madness that rivals Hell's foundation.
Not a war but a universal feud!
Armageddon’s renewable fuel,
a superb engine with only one defect:
a minute window of love,
that everyone will successfully not find!
The ALPHA of a professed OMEGA!
We met on a walk of very hot coals.
We fell in love and hatred together.
It seems we sold the furnace our souls.
Can burning passion stay lit forever?
I love you with every pulse of my heart.
Yet, you cast me out with your whole being.
Now you tell me you loved me from the start.
In this affair, seeing is believing.
Our contact leads to third degree burns.
After kissing we run for ice water.
Our romance is where liquid rock churns.
Places of calm become filled with squalor.
A nice, soothing warmth keeps us together.
In winter we wear no hats, gloves, or coats.
We bathe in the freezing cold ice water.
We observe Arctic wild life and journal notes.
This scorched passion heats any winter storm.
Despite fire's chaos, we will stay warm.
Freddie
Friendship you offered me freely
Ready always to help and advice
Each comment structured and balanced
Delightful were the words you wrote
Drawing pictures and visions in the mind
Invoking thoughts that inspired
Each phrase and verse chosen well
I read the last poem he wrote before changing his id
to poet aggressor and to me it seemed he knew what
lay ahead. Maybe even welcomed it, I think he had,
had enough for who knows what he was going through
we all wear public faces keep the pain and torment
hidden. Freddie dear Freddie already I miss you so
much I will leave you with his own moving words.
Spoken Words
richness of the heart
the tongue will speak graciously
a bounty of words
spoken tenaciously well
incanting ones included
Mea Culpa
I'm the accuser
blaming myself directly
a sign of my guilt
pointless justification
without any allowance
Missing
at the funeral
unsuccessful burying
mourners in plenty
grave devoid of a body
instead thrown in a furnace
Anticipation
courage is with me
just as long I keep breathing
once I die I'm dead
apprehensively of course
don't know where I'm going yet
A few of Freddie's short poems
his websites
www.poetrycuresthesoul.co.uk
www.guidgearcomesinsmabulk.com
www.poezijimaltin.com (blog)
Here you silently rest unsung hero
A granite stone on top of you
As a symbol of deference and dignity
With the words Rest in Peace.
Rest in peace indeed hero of mine!
You once walked amongst the living
Coming from a battle
With aching wrists, stomach cramps and leaden feet,
And yet the world grinned at you with emptiness.
Yet, they sang songs loud and clear.
Songs of eternity about the same battle
Praising those who came back with
Bleeding noses, cuts, bruises and black eyes.
Rest in peace, indeed.
You once came back from a marathon,
You were exhausted but still had your feet firm on the ground
And yet you were met with lifeless words.
Instead they sang songs of jubilation
To those who came back from the same marathon
With their chests panting like frogs and
Sweat streaming all over their bodies.
And now!
Only now that you lay lifeless in the world of the silence
And the living finally has wax removed from their ears and eyes,
Are beginning to weave songs about you.
For they now know that you had the furnace of a tiger
You had burning passion that lit for men and women
Walking in confusion in the jungle war.
You held an elephant’s tusks
For your knowledge provided paths for those who were lost
And kept them grounded.
You had the strength of a lion
Your tenacity made you fight and fight…
Rest in Peace, indeed
Hero unsung.
From the crag I see the path
descend into the valley
shrouded in the shadows of
doubt, uncertainty, and fear of failure.
I see a white pillar cast in regret's cold salt-stone,
from which there is no turning back.
Even a brief glance back over the shoulder
up into the bright crags of peaks above,
bathed in bright sunlight in the path behind me,
will cause me to fall off the path side,
into the chasm of hell, penance, suffering and retribution,
toppling off the cliff with arms and legs flailing,
tumbling out of control,
screaming through gnashed teeth.
The shadows wreak of tales untold,
of battles fought and lost,
of past losses and retreats on endless repeats.
The mists wreak and stink of echoes
returning, haunting back to
what was longing to be forgotten,
as I step lightly
into the shadows of the valley.
I draw in my collar around my cheeks,
drag my hood over to cover my head,
pull my arms tightly against my body
to retain my bodily heat
to shield against the dank, dark, nagging cold,
I look ahead with steely-eyed determination
to soldier-on with the resilience and resolve
that's deeply forged within the marrow of my bones
I take another step down
to rise above the easy path
to self-victimization, subterfuge and blame.
I succumb without a whimper
to the blast furnace.
To be heated soft to red-white hot.
To be beaten and banged,
by the blacksmith clad in leather,
into an steely shape
only useful when cold.
A pleasant cool settles
the ground flecked
by sunlight drizzling down
through a tall canopy
of trees. A slight wind
tickles the top leaves
with whispers.
All seems idyllic.
Yet forty years ago
on a Wednesday,
fire blasted the bush here
with a wall of furnace heat.
A blackened wasteland
was all that was left
leaving seventy-five lives
lost in its wake.
The bush never
counts the dead
nor records their names.
For it, there is only
blind obedience to life.
Eons have passed
with countless fires
scarred into the length
of its long history.
The land here is primal,
beyond our time, evolved
to bathe in cinders
and seed the future
in showers of flame.
Buffeted by hot, dry winds
and relentless heat,
its beauty becomes
an incendiary bomb
waiting to be lit.
But it harbors
no intentional ill
as it cycles through
its ancient playbook
of burn and renewal.
Our ways don't fit well
with such elementary
forces. As tenants, death
is sometimes the tragic
price we pay as rent,
the interest accrued
on love.
Nothing is meant to be,
but twenty six years later,
it claimed a further
one hundred
and seventy three.
They all have names
and leave families
with scars notched
into our history.
Out of love, Eternal God sent Father Christ
His Eternal Son into the World
Because of sin, dying
Death of our earthly bodies, also eternal death
Father Christ spoke often about eternal fire
Awaits all those who reject Eternal Father’s merciful love in Father Christ
All who reject the Eternal Son rejects eternal life
He alone who he brings are condemned already
The condemnation is eternal separation from Eternal God
What Father Christ refers to as the “hell of fire”
The “furnace of fire”
The “unquenchable fire”
Hell is something man chooses
There are only two ways
Leads to Life
The other leads to death
For the gate is narrow
The way is hard
Leads to Life
Those who find it are few
The narrow way is Father Christ Himself
He said “I am the way
The truth
The life
Following Father Christ means
Following the Church He started
Following the way
Following truth and the life
No one comes to the Eternal Father
But by me”
In Father Christ, the Eternal Father has made
A way to life for us
How foolish of me to refuse
I don’t like the means of help He has chosen
For my salvation
I chose to take the help He gave
11152011/4242013
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