Long Gristmill Poems

The victim list keeps growing

But no one really cares

The gristmill claims another one

Keep your hands in and don't stare

Hollywood is the golden land

The eternal silver screen

But many souls are lost here

A lot of greats or...

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Prior To Commencing Poem, I Dreamt Contretemps Escalating fusillade...

Galvanized hotheaded idealists (jaded
locals - kindled moderates) nursed
oppressive proletarian quavering riot
spearheading triumphant utopian voice...

whether contrived right here and now,
or purportedly fragmented remnant
occuring during REM sleep
beside the point,...

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'The Millwheel wouldn't turn until the Spring'. It was a strong wood-frame structure originally designed for a very special purpose. The Gristmill was a mill for grinding grain, and before we ever considered dancing on...

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It was a strong wood-frame structure originally designed for a very special purpose. But in the early 60's, my father converted it into an entertainment hall and a little cafe for young people.  Though...

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Ah, the "daily grind" ...
          spin, spin, the big stone wheels,
               ...

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Whether the shadow of your face
Or the stripes of grace on the leaves
Whether the water and soil
In turmoil to sprout and  bloom out
Releasing the stress of the bones
Into the cones of the buds
All I...

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Priscilla of Titillating Courage 

With smidgens of cereal we may choose to grind traces from

Grains of life truth sadness vagaries and the circle of being

Separate the wheat from the chaff only to find out we...

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My grandmother sure liked a good story,
so did her mother, and her mother Flori;
    who settled in New France,
    coming to take a chance.
These ancestors who built a wood...

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The old stone gristmill stood like a monolith,
its massive wooden wheel creaking and turning
dipping into the swift waters of a dammed-up creek.

Inside, everything was covered in a fine white dust 
amidst a cacophony of cogs,...

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I thought to write a poem on a gristmill.
First I googled it, having never really heard that term before.
The “grist” part had conjured up for me
images of grisly scenes like in a horror movie
in which...

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Sometimes, I can hear that happy, bubbly brook
bouncing over stones and under the wheel…that giant wheel.
It would drone along groaning a wooden song;
each night luring the brassy sun ever toward a distant skyline
by soft chattering...

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Deep in the overgrown hollow of the woods
  the gristmill wheel still turns where memories once stood,
  splashing water lightly on each rung some worn and gone
  as it circles the breeze...

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I often watched  him tirelessly sifting
Grains of native corn in a rusty mill-
     Those arms a kinetic flush, quicker than
     July’s heat, as if glazed limestone...

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In my remote village a long time ago
From town came a man of twenty or so
Set up a smart machine called gristmill
Times have changed but it’s there still.

Every weekend I had to go there to...

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This time around, I will not scatter these grains
to land where the weeds might choke them.
This time around, I will collect these kernels
and take them to the gristmill in my head
to crack under all that...

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Down by the stream on the outskirts of town
stands the old gristmill who’s facing sundown.
The glory days bygone are but a dream,
on the outskirts of town, down by the stream.

‘Twas a shining star way back...

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The gristmill of war leaves its dead frozen
to lay on the blood soaked crusted floor of time
lifeless bent shapes, the ones chosen
in wars, caused by twisted mind's of mankind

only mothers wash blood from time's threshing...

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Gladly, I greet the gristmill guard:
…..“God is good!”*

Governed am I by this goal in the granary:
…“Grind the golden grains gaily!”

Gallantly, I am gripped with grace-greatness:
…“Garner gems of generosity!”
 
Geared am I to grasp by grueling...

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A frigid landscape casts a bitter pall
over a barren nation of weary souls
imprisoned and laden under a regime
of hammer and sickle, numb and cold.

Regimented are the eyes of oppression  
unblinking, endlessly watching
scrutinizing, searching, ever...

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The grist mill stands by the side of the lake
A bustling flour mill of yesteryear
An eerie place where many people died
If you go inside you will sense the fear.

John Grist the miller was a psychopath
Well...

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Yesterday’s sweet corn
     now rests among the shucked,
          where norms’ victims lay.

Side-by-side in rusty silos,
     awaiting the gristmill;
...

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So, this  is where the sheaves were hauled
Where corn was husked, and seeds were hulled

So, this is where the meal was ground,
until the clock ran down

Round and round
a donkey bound
Asleep, awake.  By night...

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At the heart of the gristmill in common 
is the millstone: 
A matched pair of matched round stones, one over the other.
Below is a bed-stone base, abeyant and prone
Above is the runner whetstone,
honed to grind...

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The Old Gristmill
(Not fit for the contest)


Way across the glen,
Many years gone passed
There lived a beauty of a women
With her fine little lass
Her daughter was a charmer
And could take me at will
To do a little...

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