She personifies the rift between town
and gown in the city,
pageant pretty, in pale pinks pellet,
lace sleeved adorned,
like a primrose she stands prominent
a gringo cigarette in one hand
Mexico’s flag in the other,
her country ‘tis of thee
like the contrafactum
of an earlier English anthem
God Save the King,
American democracy
she paints her de facto
her homeland in turmoil,
under an anthropomorphized sun
lest the moon’s clash in her own sky
Olmec ruins, laid foundation
stone heads, deep-rooted cacti
leaving behind the natural nation
she’ll advance athwart
contra the cold chicken coop
industrialization’s smokestacks,
the iconic River Rouge Plant
ugliness versus beauty
a glossy façade?
homesick for her pagan past
The wind is in from lost town,
it is as thin as a knife edge.
Razor beaked gulls
twist their necks, rolling
in the gritty bluster.
Lost town sinks beneath
churning clouds,
its smokestacks
just above each
new wave of despair.
The people there
have misplaced their lives,
and if they only had time
they would out-scream the gulls,
but a groveling grind
keeps them turning iron wheels,
or shoveling dry clinker
into long rusted buckets
of hope.
Of her gifts of nature,
once pristine flowing streams,
her green and blue majestic presence
in the infinite universe vast reaches,
My Jesus Christ left her in our care,
we must act now, not later-
for her survival.
Her earthly soul mourns as her
animals suffer, humans too,
her royal oceans with precious
marine life's waters sullied,
her rainforests plundered.
We must, as humanity,
rectify our trespasses against her,
for her survival.
Her polar regions sweating,
breaking off icebergs,
many of her kingdom species
endangered.
Stop the greed and the smokestacks
choking her air,
halt the pillaging of her resources-
for her survival.
Government officials, chasing me
A peaceful Naked being dance on the street
Woke from a nightmare being chased by blind eyeballs draped in flags,
City on fire, smokestacks, meat trucks, doctors of insanity.
I came to a decision
Gonna stay here in my Naked skin
I don't think there is a promised land out there anymore,
Gonna stay here in Cap d' Adge, France.
I say some prayers that the children of the world have a future
Where Nudism is accepted and not shyed upon
I ponder to why the human species shy away from something they came with,
Humans keep making this same mistakes over and over.
Luckily in this era the hate just keeps getting lesser and lesser
But erring on side of the positive
Put out more awarness about the loving community of Nudists my fellow Nudist,
Put out more faith in Nudism as it liberates.
Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire
smokestacks, waffles, pansies, people,
and purple sunsets.
Carl Sandburg
PURPLE PANSIES
A pensive-pansy bouquet,
vibrant diffusion of lot,
Borscht belt, Catskill-sunshine core,
platonic petals of thought.
Purple pansies are childhood,
of God’s wide-eyed creation,
innocence in royal cloak,
a roused imagination.
Deft purpleness recollects,
not grandma’s frilly feast days -
a sixty’s mod Easter dress,
painted nails of royal praise.
Fresh fairyland apogee
o’er green-sea, circular bowl.
Petal’s shades of light and dark -
a poet’s purple, vibrant soul.
6/1/2022
Purple Flowers Poetry Contest
used Rhymezone and HMS
Reindeer racks, huffing and chuffing - smokestacks
longing, like huskies, to run with shining
red sleigh. Commercials over, indicates
to Nick, in his hip black and red plaid, matching
fur-rimmed hat, pom-pom and whiskers, “Let’s go!”
Colorado Reinbeer to the rescue. The swagger
and lift of spirited gifts to neighbors.
Santa moves with the covid times, to cheer
up the down in the mouth, even the kids
with suds of their own - root or birch beer floats.
Sleigh bells and holiday harnesses play
in the steep mountain snow with “Ho! ho! ho!”
11/28/2020
Loosely based on a segment I saw on the news.
The two-lane road stretches
through a shimmering glaze
to the horizon, passing
smokestacks of mesas spewing
clay and maize in vaporous mass.
I hear the sibylline whisper of rain
through emerald brush
and serpentine hiss
of slithering sand.
The acrid smell permeates
evergreen and purple sage,
carries the aroma
with fine dust.
I point my thumb west,
a prayer for a willing traveler
to whisk me away
from the cumulative downpour
when the desert paint
floods umber in the gullies.
[starboard port]
the ocean—an onyx plate predawn—
somnambulant ships preen with a swag of
warning lights
massive hulls: cargo ships, flotillas, tankers,
passenger liners loll; red lights buss
the somber slate of sky—spangled strings of
bawdy bulbs on the riggings—pole dance
beside the quay—ridged, behemoth smokestacks
toy with the flames of gold and white
[cabin’s lav—occupied]
waiting, my mind trundles to funeral pyres
Viking ships, then returns to marvel at
on-coming airport pot lights which
upstage the walled gasps
[very occupied]
the exodus to Singapore crescendos
we land—manned the plane performs
a ritual slide—ash and steam spew from
stacks of the other perpendicular
members
Touch down.
[the door opens]
First Published by Shooter Literary Magazine Spring of 2017
pain me
pain me
in
a
poem
every line
of
mine
disconnects me
here i am on this line
now look at me here
now here i am
here i am
me here
no
me
here
now
dare
time found my neck in a noise
every line i ever wrote grew an tooth
now we rest in the gallows hung loose
razor-toothed poems lacerate my back
blood curdling screams hollow
from
the
smokestacks
nostrils spew fire
mouth sewn through
the
flames
pain me
?
Surrounded by smoke
of a bellowing factory
tied to a promise
I dare not breach
Walking a dream
of evergreen hills
drinking up fountains
of native springs
A flight of sparrows
a vast blue sky
a greeting in dialect
peculiar to town.
On ashes of pines
smokestacks now rise
not even a speck
of light in the sky
Covered by shapeless
unyielding clouds
the stars have fled
the moon has followed
And yet I am singing
in secret smiling
the promise I have kept
has kept me alive.
First Place Winner: Brian Strand-All Yours April 30 Contest
Sol Magazine 2008 Workshop Second Place Winner-Original Title: Village To Town- A volunteer Nostalgia
When light goes from the sky, hitherto blue
And all seems so old and dead, except you;
And the cicadas’ concord ceases midday song,
And Orion melts, who erstwhile told the lie that nothing’s wrong;
Lament not, for smokestacks will promptly climb
Into a sky so pastel pale with the passing of the time;
Against which softly set will be a blur of orange, of red,
At which hearts will swoon and will pass thy frigid dread.
As the iced-pricked air elicits the blood of the weeping trees
And you, now numbed, are brought to your reddened knees;
To the wind-whipped rustle, the music of the ground,
You cry and laugh a little at such art, profound.
The smoke of autumn will billow about your elated being
And let it you will and stand in awe, as if for the first time seen;
For a thought will rise as a bubble in your humming head –
O how and so can such beauty be made by things but dead?
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
© Ron Arbuthnot aka ron wilson aka Vee Bdosa
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn,
as sounds of morning break unearthly still,
arising to the day, some life goes on,
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air,
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was, is slow in pure descent,
and longing for the earth turning below,
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train,
awhistling, here come the dead again.
© ron Wilson aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
ron wilson aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown PoeT
This Friday, 20 April, is observed as Holocaust Rememberence Day.
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
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