"mills" poems
Evergreen and ivory
Turquoise tears bleed ebony
Fuchsia trees bear violet cherries
Blood oranges,
Mushroom clouds and ashberries.
These are the thoughts that grace my mind
As I turn to leave
Garden gnomes and rose scraped knees
Faster now
Faster than before
Kiss me golden,
Less, then more
And tell me who I am.
Coteries and clandestine deals
Soft-sweet midnight chamomile
And indigo aspirations
Somber February celebrations
Anniversaries white and red
Blue and green and white and red
And can you keep a secret?
Black-tea memories always slap me sleepless
And I have never known quite exactly how I feel.
Clementines suspended in yellow lamplight
Cross it out to scarlet rewrite.
Beige mountains and Alaskan hills
Crescent moon and sawdust mills
Silver smiles on a benign boat
Blessed if I'm an allusion to a footnote.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
This isn’t the first Saturday night ,
When your muse will gently kiss a faded parchment ,
And give birth to verses
That will keep me awake all night.
This isn’t the first Saturday night ,
When I will spill more ink than a wounded soldier ,
Writing his last letter back home ,
From the treacherous trenches
Of scarlet love.
But then the trenches I sought refuge in,
Are more treacherous than the rusted bayonet ,
With which he will script ,
The final chapters of his life .
And yet like him ,
If there’s one thing I have come to believe in ,
Then it’s this :
There is more comfort ,
In believing ,
In an unshakable absolute ,
Than there is in hiding ,
Beneath the mills of woolen warmth.
And
There is more naked grief ,
In letting your dreams ,
Be hinged to uncertainties,
Than there is in daring ,
To brave the winter without your warmth.
And yet you wonder?
Why I detest absolutes,
Which need a blanket of uncertainties ,
To survive the chill of a Saturday night ,
A night which as it drags on,
Like a frozen Nicholas sleigh ,
Seems to mock every fiber of hope in my being ,
Fibers that I unravelled to adorn
The dwelling of My absolute.
This isn’t the first Saturday Night when the tale will remain incomplete
Without that innocent question I crave to answer
For you are my absolute ,
Uncertainty.
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 11:54 AM UTC
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
3.6k
*If we leave the litter behind,
and run until our legs become a burden and our heads start to swell and come loose like a white-cloth-Arabian-silk turban,
we can make it home before 5.*
Past the market that only makes sense in the sun,
along the terraces slipping from their foundations,
skip on-top of walls before falling back into our run
behind the street of seared spice smells, conjured up by different nations.
We’ve left the litter behind.
We’d run further than these cities and their boundaries,
take transport to the tops of heavenly high hills,
cause havoc amongst the machinery of the foundries
and make it home for five if we run through those mills.
We’ve left the litter behind.
Holding hands we’ll remember the brush of the grass on our thighs,
farmer’s fields and the dark brown cut-throughs we took,
our pockets full of receipts and chewing gum supplies
and the look of your pale blue eyes amongst your fresh air haircut.
I hope the litter don’t mind.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
I read some poems on here
That would just be up his street
Scrooge would love so much to read
How you all deal with defeat
Not everyone, mind you, you know
Just those, we all ignore
you know ...the suicidal ones
who are in ***** upon the floor
i got dumped and i just want
to **** myself ...they say
if you write it down on here, i guess
you won't do it anyway
Scrooge would love the way
They talk of copulation
He'd just sit back and say
Then let them reduce the population
They threaten to go off the rails
Though, I think some might be done
They talk of doing things, slowly
Have they not heard of a gun ?
Scrooge would love the way they cry
When they don't get their own way
He'd be hooked on this, because you find
Five hundred...every day
He'd suggest we re-institute
The mills and the poor houses
So, he would have to listen to
The stories of these louses
A topic of importance would be
Something, he would write
of money, pestilance and then
he'd say...GOOD NIGHT
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
There's a big deal made these days
About ****** harassment at work
And quite rightly so
Who needs a heavy breathing half-wit
Slobbering over them at work?
Or anywhere else
If it comes to that
But I remember a time
Oh what a time
When I started work in the sixties
As a bobbin boy in the mills
And when mill girls
Were wild wild women
And we were their targets
We became swift of wit and feet
Very quickly
And I remember clearly when
Dear old "Make 'em 'ave it Phil" Doris
Grabbed Dougie Hibbert on his own
Hiding in the bobbin racks
She put his **** in a milk bottle
Then horned him up so he couldn't
Get the **** thing off
Then shouted everyone
To come and see
By Phil Roberts
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 5:35 AM UTC
train to Chicago...
See it from a train.
Should have called it
the Rust Apocalypse.
Endless piles of industrial
woolly mammoth skeletons
turned red by the rust
that never sleeps or blinks.
Miles and miles of factory,
mills, and foundry corpses.
The workers long scattered
to $10 per hour ***** jobs.
Businesses gone with the workers.
Globalization at its finest.
The end of the people's value.
Amerika crumbles of dry rot.
Enjoy your stuff, good citizen.
This will all come to you.
There is no immunity
to endless, mindless greed.
~mce
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 4:51 PM UTC
Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch
after William Blake
I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.
I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked
nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.
II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,
the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.
III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,
I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,
were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild
I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.
Keywords/Tags: Orpheus, singer, poet, William Blake, whistle, Satanic, mills, manacles, law, leaden, ball, chain, prison, song, freedom
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 1:34 AM UTC
A thistle is just enough
to encumber a ruff
rider through the hills
never mind the flour mills
to process and possess
and gain interest
on fervent capital gains
which are not worth the pains
for glory be told
for those who'd rather be old
and grey without headfeathers
and times naught but better
have then the vanity
to spew chicanery
to delve into the society
of anti-sobriety
and them then who lost
streetwise cost
but for the depreciated stock
which will be bought up by the flock
will credit its debits
to gangs that met its
match to the makers
and the tough men shakers
who make it possible to move
product without anything else to prove
than to their mothers
dead fathers and brothers
that one can make a living
off of ******* soul ******* and killing.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 6:38 AM UTC
There is a bullet in a box of crayons with really strange names like Parkland Perrywinkle, Sandy Hook Sanguine, and Great Mills Green in a place where children play Russian Roulette with their school supplies when they reach in to grab one and they’ve been learning about probability this week Forrest Gump will tell them you never know if you’re going to finish the lesson or turn into a statistic my sister likes to create mosaics by putting a hairdryer to crayons melting cascades of wax down a blank page sometimes she reaches in and it’s the one lead crayon at the top of the page and it’s only one color that seeps down into the crevices of the cafeteria’s tile floor that proceeds to wash away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers washes away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers I see another child reach into the box and I write another word problem I write another word problem: “Zoey reaches into a box of crayons. What is the likelihood she will not get to hang her drawing up on her kitchen refrigerator? What is the likelihood her funeral photo will hang there instead?” Draw students’ attention to the key word “likelihood.” Tell students This word shows that the question is asking whether or not you will live to tell your parents how your day at school was. and I wonder when school desks will take the shape of caskets in a place where both screams of laughter and screams of terror
are permitted
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 1:02 PM UTC
Her Father's old wool jacket,
from Johnson Mills,
in creamy white,
dark forest green,
golden amber,
in a lovely patchwork,
A soft dark winter tuke on her head,
that dark green in the background,
with rusty speckles on her cheeks,
Wet snow falls silent,
the sky is a crisp Winter blue,
the air is cold and clear,
& intoxicatingly clean,
As she breathes life in and out,
then,
looking down at her black Sorel boots
and her worn black denim jeans,
a nice old holey wool sweater,
and a maul,
A **** lumberjack?
Maybe...
Dressed to hack the wood,
the plumber thinks so,
he stops by,
a friend of hers,
sorta,
Huh?
Not invited,
but no one is around here,
we all do it,
so he helps too,
Hey I'll make lunch,
harmless flirting,
I suppose,
Because,
wood warms you 3 times they say,
Once to chop it,
two to stack it RIGHT,
three to bring it in & burn it,
But if you count the starting of the,
cantankerous chainsaw & the guy,
helping you,
And you hafta arrange & rearrange, everything,
cleaning the flue and chimney,
I'd say a few more than that,
& don't ferget to pay the man,
the cantankerous one,
Yeah he got lunch too,
and about them ashes,
could be pretty hot,
take 'em out regular,
that stove cranking too,
OUCH,
She ends up gets burned,
a few times each year,
Taday,
she's on step too,
as she picks up the heavy maul,
not to heavy for this gal,
all the way back,
watch yourself,
As a neighbor winches,
a woman chopping wood?
Yup.
That's right,
a way of life,
for her,
always has been,
poised and ready,
swing and smack,
if you hit it right,
you hear a crack,
Just like a baseball bat,
hitting a homer,
Big pieces,
are made more manageable,
when you don't try to control the force,
when you let the sharpened maul,
Do all the work,
for you.
Cherie Nolan © 2016
Nov 20, 2016
Nov 20, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
If you're reading this I'm either dead or in Dallas
I have to catch a train and a plane all at the same time
L to the A to the JFK
My getaway
Like a cemetery I'm dying to get into that lone star state
I've missed the wide open spaces
My family and friends smiling faces
A bathroom to call my own and a home with multiple rooms to roam
From Dallas I extend my gratitude to the families I wasn't born to but made
My boys in Austin from 3306 who took me in when a woman sent me packin'
Dr Mills from New Orleans handin' out red beans, rice, and thrills
If it wasn't for the Rich I'd never have seen Florida or Vegas
The wild spirit, she who must not be tamed from Colorado
My California kin that took me in and fed me from your tables, so kind (of you) to let me drink your wine
All of you,
Thank you,
I am truly blessed,
For my families across the U.S.
Even though I'm here for just a week
I already miss my Brooklyn family deep in the Mes
They're making Thanksgiving happen without a kitchen
Cooking away their stress, making more out of less
Back to Dallas I came
I'm jovial to be home
But it's not the same
For I have grown
Because of the support
My new families have shown
I love you all
Wherever you are
Across the country
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 2:52 PM UTC
556
The Brain, within its Groove
Runs evenly—and true—
But let a Splinter swerve—
’Twere easier for You—
To put a Current back—
When Floods have slit the Hills—
And scooped a Turnpike for Themselves—
And trodden out the Mills—
2.5k
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
In the old part of town
There are still cobbled streets
And at one time
These streets were surrounded
By living working mills
Marking the towns heartbeat
Twenty-four hours a day
Seven days a week
The machines hammered the air
As the flying shuttles were cracked
From side to side of the weft
On more than a hundred looms
It sounded like a battlefield
And some would say it was
But that was long ago
And now the mills are dead
The buildings still stand
But inside they are broken
Housing many more
Modern endeavours
And in one of these old buildings
Within the same crusty bricks
There's another world that lives
In the dark hours at least
There's a night club that throbs
To the sound of bands playing
Different rhythms for the town
And the neon lights outside
Shine on the same old cobble stones
By Phil Roberts
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 11:02 AM UTC
*Faith in the tempered evening , for the Friday night reverberation -
of hometowns just over the Shamrock green horizon
For the day end Amber-glow of well kept -
Summer gardens
Blessed is the power of tonights Harvest Moon
The Suns early dedication to the Chattahoochee flora of the coming June
For morning dew prisms that ignite rolling hayfields
For talking Indian rivers , Railroad townships and period Flour Mills*
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blindman followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older
Soon it will be fifteen years
He was old he will have fallen into his eyes
I took my eyes
A long way to the calendars
Room after room asking how shall I live
One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles their
Image of hope
It was offered to me by name
Once once and once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say
He will have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass
I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay
He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water
We are the echo of the future
On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live
2k
I dreamt of a field of flowers
Where white crosses are planted
Families still together
Content with life
Genuine grins covering faces
I dreamt of full bellies
On the dark continent
Soccer ***** rolling between feet
Of children who also dream
Of lives as happy as theirs
I dreamt of fresh air
And clean water and growing forests
The cleanliness of nature unrivaled
As animals mingled around the watering hole
Roaming freely with homes
But I awoke and saw war
Fires melting the lives of millions
Dropping bombshells of grief
Destroying homes from within
And children dead or weeping
I awoke and saw despair
Fat bellied greed hogs
Rollin in muddy money pits
While babies died without food
And an entire land stripped and sold
I awoke amd saw nothing
But smoke stacks emitting poison
And the homes of the forest creatures
Being carried into lumber mills
And brown water filling drinking glasses
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 1:44 AM UTC
In memoriam Asher and Franklin
Farmers flocked to Blossburg's mines
willing their abandoned plows
to perpetual dust and rain.
Burrowing into the Tioga hills
with Keagle picks and sledges,
they filled their trams with rough cut coal.
Black diamonds - carved for waiting boilers
of New England mills and trains
and Pennsylvania's winter stoves.
Brothers, Frank and Asher swung their picks
in tunnels deep beneath the hills
and brushed away the clouds of soot.
Their coughs at first seemed harmless
enough as from nagging colds or flus -
but deepened as their lungs turned black.
Pain and choking drove them to their beds
where no medic's art could aid them.
Then the coroner came to seal their eyes.
A stonecutter's chisel marks their brevity
on an marble graveyard obelisk
that pays no homage to their sacrifice.
September, 2007
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 3:57 PM UTC
O! How I long endear myself
to thee,
in the urgency of my desire
to yield to the mercy
of this faithful destiny!
As soon I am about to commence
my new course of journey,
embracing the heath on the hills
and the dark of the mills
looking for wholehearted sincerity,
healing my long-lost gaiety,
prudence, and generosity!
O subtle, yet perilous gaiety that
was ignored by such disparagement,
and its fabulous tenacity!
Ardent, merciless tenacity!
That but shan't befriend the course
of thy adultery, yet praise thy ignominy
and infamy in an adorable, inherent manner!
But never forget that the entire breadth
of this journey
I devote to thee:
in order that thee would become my love,
my soul, and all the healthy demeanour beneath;
thou hath my life, kisses, and
the sacred secrets of my fiery health.
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 8:58 AM UTC
She had the poison in her veins
I was trying to **** it out
vampire doctor
trying to tough it out
radio blunt in my mouth
receiving the truth of the devil
thought I was a running man
till I bottomed out on the level
where accidents happen
reality clappin'
praising my downfall
she's got the poison in her soul
and I'm the cobra of the year...
Strange how rain falls
like time passes
ones and zeros
stained glass of our past
rosier than we remember
darker than September
wish I could go back
wish memory were dead
marching on like ants on a hill
my will, and it's not steel
my passion for tragedy
has a fixation on old mills
spinning in circles
I'm caught in the drain
funnel of mayhem
funnel of *******
high on life, we chase the goals of the dope game
higher and higher
expecting our lives will all change
I question the Lord
more than I question myself
That's why I'm lost
cause you can't question the Law's land
purpose is powerful
peace is potent
patience is placid
power is purposeful
you can run around and question the question the question the question
but have the integrity to answer and you're adorned with blessings
high towers fall in the storms of change
tranquility is denial of the form of truth
acceptance of truth's realities transforms us
I taste it
the elixir of the problem of war
power is an addiction
addiction is a cage
to be free, we require power
to break addiction's vice grip
so you see the conundrum
a paradoxical illusion
it is placing our faith in the infinite that we grow
loose the bonds of human decay and sow what God sows
my belief is in the wisdom of man to choose divinity
those who choose death
are the eternal
wicked
enemy
wasting the fortunes
that we will harvest in the times to come
when humanity is free
to love
and love as one.
Aug 1, 2022
Aug 1, 2022 at 7:46 AM UTC
ITS YOUR FREE WILL
2 chill
Develop a skill
Chase after mills
Or just pay your bills
ITS YOUR FREE WILL
2 speak
Turn the other cheek
Stay out the streets
Live like the meek
ITS YOUR FREE WILL
2 steal
Go out and ****
Claim that your real
All for the appeal
ITS YOUR FREE WILL
U choose the path that u feel
You'll eventually learn wats real
Bc the consequences won't be apart of your.....FREE WILL
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 2:30 AM UTC
Some think this world a vale of tears, or worry and of sighs;
That Life's a great big lottery, in which few win a prize.
I read some hopeless verses once that don't deserve to last,
They told how the mill can never grind with water that is past.
I'd like to change that fallacy which has caused so many a tear,
And by transposing make it bear a message of good cheer
And point the way of winds of hope, like pennant on a mast,
For I know that the mill can grind again with water that is past.
A mountain stream comes trickling in the sunlight down the hill,
And gathers volume until it has strength to run the mill;
It happily continues then, upon its useful way,
Turns other mills still further down, until it joins the bay.
Its temporary mission o'er, it sweeps out to the sea
With other useful waters bearing it company;
And there all peacefully they rest, beneath the shining sun,
Who seems to think their mission is scarcely yet begun.
With gentle force He lifts them up in vapors to the sky,
And gathers them in fleecy clouds in His domain so high,
Where kindly winds then waft them back to that mountain home,
From which a few short hours before we saw them start to roam.
The cooling night then causes them to fall in gentle showers,
A blessing to that mountainside, to grass and trees and flowers;
And in the dawn of early morn we find them back once more
In that same little mountainside, but stronger than before.
They gather volume as they come a-tumbling down the hill,
And then with added vigor again they turn the mill;
And then in play they rush away, through meadowland and town,
And every mill again is turned as they go dancing down.
The brightest day is no more useful than the darkest night,--
Our troubles soon would disappear if we'd view them aright.
Good fortune may be holding back her best things to the last,
For I know that the mill can grind again with water that is past.
And that same little mountain stream
Has always been to me
But one of Nature's many proofs
Of Immortality.
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 7:51 PM UTC