Pulleys Poems | Examples

Changing gears

When mankind has been using gears, levers and pulleys,
For thousands of years,
To speed things up,
Or slow things down,
To make it possible to take heavier loads uphill,
And to go faster on straight roads.

Then came clocks to measure the passing of time.
And with many machines geared to the speed needed,
For their required tasks,
One would think that humankind would lead less stressful lives,
But no their brains remain unable to change down to a lower gear,
Unless they take their brain out into the country for a year or two.
Most however don't seem to have the heart for it,
Are always looking to arrive at their destination Dead on Time,
And one day they will,
Sooner than they needed to.

Lillith's Passing

What is it called?

When thousands of bats
Come pouring out the mouth of a cave
For the black gold of sunset?

Like that
The late autumn leaves tear from their branches
In a spooky warm gale
Misplaced this Halloween night

Buries the party of cars parked on the street
For the last three days of vigil
Tending to 100-year-old Lillith
Next door

Her bedroom window 30 feet from me
Where I stand in short sleeves
Amazingly
This time of year

I too wait for news

As I watch the tree tops crumble
And the puzzle pieces of starry sky
Connect their arms and fill the gaps

Creamy river Milky Way

Maybe they are holding Lillith’s hands
Asking her questions about the beyond

And knowing Lillith
She’s ignoring them all or mumbling
Oh yes yes

Peering outdoors through her curtains

Listening to my wind chimes
Ding
Like a harbored sailboat’s mast
Lashed by its pulleys and hoists

Nothing left of Lillith’s sail

Of course it would be a wind like this
On a magical night like this
That carries her away in its arms

Over the roofs and pumpkin streets
To the new October stars.

Chicken Gullet Destiny

CHICKEN GULLET DESTINY
(or "The Trouble With Radishes")
 
The memory of things that will be
usually fades into the haunting melody
of a life reduced to picking the easy fruit
of future history.

Never more the blue-sky dreams,
Living low, deep in the dirt,
careful to not look up and see
what may become of me.
 
Extoll the virtues of the radish!
In harmony with nature he is, returning all he takes,
bissfully blank, nary a care
for whom his creator may be …

… or his chicken gullet destiny.
 
Perhaps I'm not fit to be master of this contented menagerie,
cursed as I am with words and tools and this fine pair of shoes.
However, crawling and squawking don't come naturally
despite the earnest promises of the well-wishers of humanity.

Gears and pulleys to and fro, yet radishes have their static charm.
But motion's the thing!
Not the clinging memories of planets yet to be
and the eventual end of me.

On Words

Let me speak of words

Those machines of evil!

The cogs and pulleys of influence,
drumbeats of the longest march
called the human endeavor

First heard as motherese,
later teaching the ABC's

They fill our ears with lies,
and our heads with alibis

They drape themselves in tinsel,
bedecked with popular acclaim
All the while concealing the poisoned talon

O beware of words!

Take care to use with deliberation,
as they hatch from the mother egg

Today - a Bit Rude

I’m not a great fan of metric
A system of which I am sceptic 
To the young it’s ethereal 
But I learned imperial
And so I still speak it...
Today

I went down to the hardware store
I’d better not go there no more
An eager young lady assistant 
Was maybe a little persistent
How can I help you...
Today 

I said I need ten eight inch nails 
She sure put the wind in my sails
The nails were near pulleys and winches 
And then she said how big’s eight inches
I’m not getting out...
Today

Yobos and Bullies

To those who harrass; the yobos we call bullies
I'd gladly string you up by the seat of your woolies
Then from a barn rafter
You would hear my laughter
While swinging overhead from ropes and pulleys

I'd stuff each of your big mouths with a dirty sock
It's such a fitting punishment for you who mock
Twenty lashes at dawn
For you are Satan's spawn
More beatings if you crawl out from under your rock

You should be ashamed when you taunt and heckle
You have far less worth than a penny or sheckle
Your bite has no power
To injure or devour
You're nothing more than a blemish or a freckle

On billboards I'd paper your names for all to see
I'm pretty sure lots of PS poets would agree
Who'd swat you like gnats
And use you like doormats
Because your attitude is loathesome and beastly



*yobo is a synonym for a bully

November 4, 2020
Judged By A Jury Of Your Peers
Sponsored by: Mark Koplin

Bully On the Pulley

Only Bullies are pulleys pulling people down to pride themselves up
to the mountains high, for better view of our sky.
I’d rather lower myself for love to be lifted
since love is low because bullying is high 

since love is low because bullying is high
I’d rather lower myself for love to be lifted
to the mountains high, for better view of our sky.
Only Bullies are pulleys pulling people down to pride themselves up

Old Father

the aroma of old people pepper air with putrid
perspiration tainting, we sit once again on settees
loosely puckered by pummelled 
time like skin hung brittly on bones, 

limbs locked on rusted pulleys 
prising on old hinges heaving heavy levers. 
rites are routinely enacted with drinks
placed on beer mats

old stories retold like fisherman tales
spun from seaward treks Past photographs framed 
gallery the white walls of graduations and weddings

Each portrait embossed edged with vellum
a masterpiece of genes some forty five years ago
but present now in the fire sharing their warmth 
who else could share the embers beyond years. 
You prod the coal fire

like grey ashen coals, relics spring scarlet 
as the clock ticks, seeking the best ways
over life's sharpened, rocky paths that would
wound, scarring shins rasping breath as a summit
was viewed clouded 








A contest on aging
Emile Pinet



1 June 2019

White Cotton Sacks

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, gears, and pulleys.
Most notably, there was a giant granite stone that turned, 
crushing grain into powder.

It was a dangerous place for kids to be,
we weren't allowed to hang around the workings. 
Pa and all of the neighboring farmers
brought bushels of wheat there to be milled,
keeping the miller busy filling white cotton sacks with flour.

A pond adjacent to the mill fueled its workings,
and we'd gather on its banks for picnic lunches.
As kids, we'd be allowed to swim or fish
while pa and the other men did all the work.
In my mind's eye, I see him dusted white as a ghost,
exchanging smiles while sharing a joke with the miller.

Today you can only imagine what it was like,
for it now only exists in dreams or picture shows.
It was a time that time will never repeat,
when farmers gathered at the gristmill
as both a necessity and a communal event.


(Free Verse)


May 25, 2018

Waking Cronus

Tired lids to buckets of endless hours
open cracks and creaks
and cold saps their strength.
Exhaustion gives 
and so do lids
for I was not born a god.

As end to time,
results evade.
Exasperation grasps unthinking.
Sudden shaking, endless quaking;
Axes work upon my trunk and limbs
as children join my garden of dreams.

Growling, grasping and blind,
reaching for those brave souls
 -though errant spawn evade.
Yet, a fallen titan,
Cronus, I shall rise again;
a new day has dawned.

Pulleys creak and 
levers groan, "Overwork!" they cry,
but work they do as I wake.
One thought I have, a simple dream:
I truly wish that someday
	-past dawn 
   	   -past six o' clock
	      -maybe even eight
the kids might deeply, sweetly sleep.

Equations

Equations 




Linear array of 
life symbols,
If one could set forth
on left and to the right,
A mere balancing
of algebraic equation,
We swing to tunes
pulleys struggle a balance.

Unlike free birds
that fly limitless,
Confident cricket
that shrills constantly,
Bees humming 
still their honey lost,
Flowers perishing
leave fragrance in air,
All celebrate life
no equations saught.

Man wasting 
efforts and time,
Interfering into 
laws of nature,
Killing and exploiting
in name of equations,
Nothing set right.

Let learnings 
of physics, chemistry
and mathematics,
Apply to real living
Equations of love
and laughter,
Wisdom and speech
emotions and trust
Be congruent.




Written March 12th, 2016
For contest "Equations" 
Sponsor- Anthony Slausen 

Now entered for "101 in a row- 14- poetry contest" by PD A

Sailing

The sails snapped in the wind as the yacht changed tack
soon to refill as the yacht skimmed over the sea racing onwards
riding the large waves with adapt aplume slicing them apart.

Dolphins playfully following as they leapt for pure joy
spinning several times before diving down deep.
Ganging up on a lurking shark they soon send it away.

The screech of pulleys as we prepare to tack once more
as the boom crashes past to be brought up sharp 
when it takes all of the free lines and sails puff up.

The ocean is sparkling in the sunlight with white crested waves
as we round the headland and now can sail with the wind
the yacht leaning far over as her gib sail speeds her on.

Now it is time to add more canvas as we flash by
the winning line now in sight and with a great cheer
from the yacht club Casaroba crosses the line in first.

Loves Persona

It's the core of impartiality,
The depth of equality.
None out-does the other.
That's about me and her.

We impersonate love and court it fully,
Dissociate from cogs and man made pulleys.
Look at her whiten jealousy,
As i cut off lusty fantasies.

Our acts are real,
Perfect two way seals.She locks i unlock vice-versa,
Two compliments no trespassers.

We handle problems personally,
Make decisions Biblicaly.
True verses from songs in our hearts,
Love heals lies hurt.

By M.O.O aka Carswell the impersonator.

Saturday Morning Ritual

Commingled human sweat permeates the atmosphere.
Grunts and clanging iron greet the ear.
Leotard clad women, without body fat, spring.
Pumped up upper bodies of tattooed men expand.

The smoothie bar dispenses recovery drinks.
Stationary bicycles travel miles, without leaving the room.
Joggers hypnotized by music turn treadmills.
The pulleys of the muscle machines sing.

The locker room calls after a brief and intense workout.
Does the fattest guy in the building have to walk around naked?
The jets in the spa remedy any muscle pain.
Relaxing, I watch an old woman pacing the bottom of the lap pool.

The heated pool is occupied by goggled children,
their swimming lessons taught by a woman in a sensible swimsuit.
They must conquer natural fear of the water,
and demonstrate proper swimming form, as parents look on.

 A steam room awaits those who can stand the intense, wet heat.
The wooden walls of the sauna room smell of eucalyptus oil.
Water thrown over hissing, heated stones creates a wall of vapor.
They say the perspiration it induces cleanses toxins.

I am not so sure……but I will return next week.

In Barracks

Germany, 1964

In barracks bare of beauty
I lay restlessly in bed. Around, a rife
of lifeless characters
from some Saturday charade
sullenly invite me to their ghastly parade.
I merely pull my blanket higher up
and blatantly yell out "Shaddup!"
A spot of flesh unknown to sun itches
so I scratch. Musty curtains run
in dusty ripples on their pulleys.
The room overflows with bullies
but I turn over in my bunk
and choose to spurn,
scratching a spot that doesn't itch.
I glance up. The light bulb top is dirty.
I reach up, unscrew the bulb,
lay silent in my patch of dark
and try, vainly, to extinguish
a more persistent spark.
The air around me reeks of smoke and beer,
is heavy with the weight of discontent.
I lie still darkly fomenting
an impotent dislike
for atmospheres like this one.
I writhe upon my squeaky cot and dun
and growl like some ancient,
burly, and barbaric Hun.
Vehemently, I vocalize my intense tension
with interjections "nice people" would never mention.

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