"refinery" poems
Big Four Railroad
In the past a little one had an interest in this story and one of the racers and the longest freight train
The race team was in the living room and their story was being read from the paper mother clueless
We laughed and snickered about our secret that old engineer was proud of us we were not vain
Down the hill we sped past Bino’s station across Jackson the B&O; he was high balling we had to pour it
On between the two tracks he was closing the gap he had nothing to lose but his pride for us it was
Curtains the long black limo a one way ride we streaked the line fifteen feet to spare we just stopped
And turned what a salutation from the engineer half hanging out the widow of that great engine his
Balled fist a shaking you sons with the deafening roar of that train so close we didn’t get to hear the rest
And the train carried him on down the track so Jerry and Larry and the other guy continued on to the
Swimming pool pleased with our speed we forgot about it until on the front of the paper in the bottom
corner it read three Pana youths out run train I guess the old engineer cooled off as he sailed on down
The track we didn’t know he talked to the tower as he passed so we didn’t get first prize or a blue
Ribbon but in a small way we entered into the great and wonderful tales of train lore along with Jessie
and Frank I told you when in trouble I had three actions fight talk or run that day the running won the
Day for these three amigos this memory was triggered by that same old paper this time it was talking
About the Amtrak detour I remember those passengers all those years ago setting there in their seats
flying through our town and the hook and the mail sack from the tower where that old bakery could be
smelled all night all the way out at the park as we watched tables for old F.S. Refinery I’m glad we didn’t
race a passenger train or this would be a hamburger story enjoy G.H.
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:53 PM UTC
I'd like to mention that my city Karnal was once the bastion of the armed forces.
Close to my house in NDRI campus until half-a-decade ago stood remnants of the old British Barracks - an irksome reminder of the colonial period.
But we went inside the rickety ruins of an olden period to play hide and seek and sometimes just for fun as an adventure.
I had seen them - the erstwhile barracks in that dilapidated state only, carrying the Union Jack painted at some places, and I had seen the ruins crash to ground - a reinstated taste of Indian freedom.
The Colonial army camped here until the occupying British chose to shift the army camp to Ambala due to high occurrence of mosquitoes in the city of Karnal and found this place fit only for a great cattle yard.
Karnal has seen negligence & side-lining ever-since along the course of history.
The Indian Oil Corporation's petroleum refinery was decided to be built in the neighbouring Panipat city & so was the National Fertilizers Limited's manufacturing plant built there and not in Karnal.
In Karnal they built research institutes, filled with greenery these make the city a comfortable place to relax at ease.
But ****** shameless people don't realize the value of plants & trees and keep removing them off the face of Karnal & even where I live, in the NDRI campus - acronym for the National Dairy Research Institute campus.
****** blood sucker stupid human beings are sometimes more irritating than the malarial mosquitoes.
They cut trees assuming trees shelter mosquitoes!
True they might be but I keep wondering what about the potholes dug by them into the coal-tar & gravel roads to facilitate the installing of religious & marriage tents.
But nothing can be done to change the people whose mindset has been falsely ligated with the thought of we are the best & we won't change.
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 3:28 AM UTC
The glory of heaven fills my heart,
a heaven of heavens;
The glory of all glories.
A city whose builder and maker is jehovah.
A home filled with treasure of treasures.
A kingdom whose gates and stones are made of gold.
A palace where flowers dwell in glory.
A city where neither pain nor sorrow exists.
A glory not compared to the things of this world.
A city of all valuables.
A refinery where the spirit of man is refined in the glory of God.
Who can ascend into the hill of the lord and access his glory?
Who can stand in his holy palace and feel his glory?
He that have a clean and pure heart.
He whose hands are not soiled in evil.
He that speaks no guile with his mouth.
He whom the lord inputeth no iniquity.
He whose soul is not lifted up in vain glory.
Behold,
a city so wounderful,
a home of other homes,
a palace from which palace are born.
Let the glory of his kingdom engulf me, and
grant me entrance to it's beauties.
Until then,
when there shall be no more earth.
When all that matters now matters no more;
the glory of this kingdom shall preserve me,
keep me blameless until his coming;
when his glory shall shine upon me,
and
l be lifted up above the sky.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 6:48 PM UTC
The carpet is stained with your beer.
You used to have the sharpest mouth
a tongue like a serpent's in slow motion
as it flicks, nay as it laps into the dark of my mouth.
Your lips felt like frozen lines of gasoline.
They tasted like the fires of the oil refinery.
I used to beg you to let me ride with you
through the forested paths lacing behind my house
on your mobylette we would fly down the gravel
like birds upon a cloud, with more bumping and rattling.
But birds aren't aroused by the turbulence of clouds.
I loved the feeling of my arms about your waist
holding you close as a reminder that if I let go
I would fall and when the day came that I let go
standing in the living room as you drank beer...
There was no where to fall but up.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 8:35 PM UTC
And the ships were fogbound for three days
Their hulls split smiling wide by the spray of the channel
We're hovering with them in the dimness of a drunk sun crawling under
A dusk devoid of color
Welcome rainclouds follow countless bouts of bleakness
Slate-gray miasma of refinery exhaust swirls
Mingling skyward with the overcast scene and all it's gulls and cranes
Cawing in the dampness toward their roosts under jetties
Those frayed hurricane tarps on dilapidated rooftops
Laid creased and faded by morose Texas suns
Epitaphs blotting dismal landscapes of copper and olive
And smashed concrete begging to be reclaimed by nature
As all of it is when the seasons heave
Our interim footnotes disguised by the power of purpose
The notion that one day our role will be to make life better for each other
(Oh, how we loathe being found out)
Instead of grimacing, sage-like, naked and angelic in our blindness by the mirror
While each shred of truth oscillates into blue ruin and we shake, shake, shake
Mesmerized by houses where we once lived and stories we must have led in them
In varied and skewed alternate realities, and in dreams we once had
Some of which paint homage to our own grim summers here
Some in which where my roads leading home were less obfuscated
Instead being laid out like the chemtrail creases drawn solemn on our brows
(We won't notice them until our thirties)
This far south, everything is the ageless vacuum we've known since conception
Thusly we're bound to the irony of it all by dull tradition and the will to break it
Among all other shams bred real by the ambitions of confused white men
Their warring remains reigning evident within my crooked heart
Under whichever corner of earthen floor it may be buried
Your guess is as good as anyone's
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 3:20 PM UTC
Woman -
You are so d*mn incredible,
I wish you can see
Just how much you mean to me...
Woman...
You are a piece of work,
A masterpiece, a work of art;
The way work a skirt,
How you whisper in the dark;
It ignites candlelights of desire
Deep within this man's heart
And I want to share that fire
Experience why you are such a work of art.
Woman...
The Mona Lisa, Fifteen Synphony
Nor can the Sixteenth Chapel compare,
The taste of your lips or my memory
Of the refinery of your touch and stare;
It moves me each time I call you my wife
And partake in this date with destiny;
You are the work of art in my life,
Beautiful Black woman, you're the best to see.
Woman,
Your skin so pretty and dark,
Your kiss so precious stole my heart:
... such a work of art.
Woman,
Your body by far the most fine,
Your eyes seem too very divine;
... such a work of art.
Woman,
Your soul is just pure,
Your mind is really secure;
... such a work of art.
The way you treat me like a king,
Woman you are my everything;
You have all of me each part by part,
Because you are such a work of art.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
I.
Take a plane to San Francisco.
Drive north on 101 across the Bay Bridge,
Through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island
past the frame houses of Oakland,
past the oil refinery that ignites the sky
past the dry, brown coastal hills,
which were emerald green just a month ago,
that unfold like a hardback novel
and flatten out into the valley.
Drive north on 80 until you get to 99
and keep driving north,
past orchards that line the road like soldiers bearing fruit
past vast fields filled with soy and sorghum
and the ancient dead volcano which breaks through
the flat earth without explanation or warning
and keep driving north,
Until you reach Chico.
II.
You can get off at E. 1st Ave, but you’ll have to
double-back to Vallambrosa to get to the park.
Stop the car and walk across the foot bridge.
Over the creek, over the dam that creates the pool
named for the towering trees all around you.
There you will see a boy about to jump
into the cool creek water.
He is about 11 or 12 years old.
He will not see you.
He will not know how far you have traveled.
He is too absorbed by the sounds of the other children
Shouting and playing and the reassuring touch
of the warm sun
gently drying his wet skin.
He does not know
that this moment,
Exquisite and feather light,
Like a glass orb lit from beneath,
Will be locked inside a precious box,
and that precious box will be buried
deep within your gut,
And carried by you both,
For the rest of your lives.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 4:17 PM UTC
The carers of clock tower.
Dark this morning.
Mornings lights switching on as work motions, the end of night.
Going into the city,
Spying twitching curtains, of forward moving city lights.
Smoke hangs grey in the cold air above the refinery.
An early photographer catches the lights in his lens.
Sadly, a dead fox curled up on the carriageway greeting eternal sleep.
Foxy for one escaped daily drudgery.
Greeted by overnight headlights.
He bade the world a perfect goodnight.
And so my daylight came.
From the night bus, I stepped into day.
From the kerbside my day was done, someone cleared the fox away, his vulpine body was gone.
(c) Livvi
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 4:05 PM UTC
There was the refinery in the ice desert of Wyoming
Past the mountains, at 3 in the morning
Lit up in the night like it was in love
And so was I
There were the oil rigs lined up in rows
Out on the smooth stone of ocean
And we pointed out to them like they
Were our light houses
Like we were boats
Like we needed something to guide us home
And in between here and there
Were semi trucks
With steel quilted sides
And lights like strange underwater fish
Attracting this to that
Attracting me to you
And there were all those times
When you were my flame
In the deep cold
When you were my foundation
Under the immensity of water
When you were my drive
Through all of these other things
And we still point at each other, over a distance
Like you or I is a light
Like you or I is still in love
Apr 26, 2010
Apr 26, 2010 at 7:02 PM UTC
The bills you get from an ATM located in a Headshop called the Refinery in the Valley are not going to be the same that you cash out of your local Wells Fargo.
They've been used before.
You can almost imagine the staff feeding the all-cash green you give them back into the machine (once a day when things are slow).
These are just facts.
When you say you don't want a 3:1 you want a 3:0... They show you a 3:1 anyways.
You know, the marketing system has really changed.
I get a discount for bringing in two newcomers.
My coworker keeps saying we are buying 'drugs'.
I tell her 'it's not "drugs";
even before the legislation passed, all you needed to say is that you had cancer and they would drive away ashamed for asking'.
I tell the staff I want something that will get me through the day,
nothing too crazy and I don't want to fall asleep.
I end up with a 3:1 CBD hybrid again.
I pay my 101.00 for the hybrid and a bit of gummy 50/50 Sativa and indica hybrid 'for the road'.
She giggles.
I remind her we have a whole department dedicated to this **** now,
she should act more professional as she selects her joints.
My other coworker gets a salve because his joints have their own problems.
Just another day with the work-family.
Jul 21, 2019
Jul 21, 2019 at 1:52 AM UTC
The town I live in is not glamorous.
It is for the oil refinery workers, the fuck-ups, and the hopeless.
You come here if you don't make it in the real world.
The cost of living is cheap and the value of life here is even cheaper.
The town smells of chemicals.
The refineries pump them out of the tall metal tubes that you see from the roof of your house.
Smoke fills your lungs and soon enough you get used to your cough.
You can't see the stars when you look up at night, the pollution took them away long ago.
The town is not safe.
Drugs flood the streets and the veins of the adolescents.
Families lock their doors at 5:30 P.M. and dare not come out until the sun rises.
The sound of screeching police sirens rock you to sleep.
But the town is beautiful.
On your nightly trips home you'll come over the bridge and you'll see the town in it's entirety.
You'll see how the smoke makes clouds above your head.
You'll see that the refineries light the city with their bulbs turned yellow from pollution.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
First morninglight through windowpane
falls to kiss
the carpet, our front garden’s Clarkia
left no trace of last
night’s condensed mist.
Is there happiness enough
to fill these rooms, or
could there ever be?
Like the relief that echoes
through living rooms on Christmas
noons, like the smile rising from a voice
at the suggestion of “Tea?”
Will the cosy silence play
to win out the crowd’s
lament? Will the dinnertime rustle
deliver imagination out from under
time's sway?
Do these questions sound like
asking the weight of water?
A cup of late youth’s innocence
to be drenched with irony,
pity’s daughter?
The home to while the world away, where to
process life’s refinery
A well-made plot that shuns
a twist.
A dry-witted author
Whose lust is the mundane.
Sep 1, 2017
Sep 1, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
Sh.. Don’t tell him, but I have a secret
He doesn’t know yet...
I have to go, or i’ll have more and more regret
It’s a big one… it’ll cause a lot of pain, I bet
I am leaving him, don’t you know?
For a woman, he doesn’t even know
She is pretty, most days I like her
She recently found herself, suddenly so sure
***** blonde hair, that rests at her neck
Bright green eyes, and .. give me a sec…
There’s more.
She is strong - a quality I adore
Her walk is purposeful
Her talk is straightforward and meaningful
She is ***** minded and a little bit odd
She is a pink salmon in a river of cod
Standing out from the crowd you see
She is a wild spirit that just got set free
I love her, like I never have before
A new found trust in her very core
I tell you this, because I had to hear it
I don’t know how he will bare it
When I tell him I have to go
To be with this woman I found when I was low
The biggest secret is yet to be told you see
Because the woman I need to be with, is me.
I found strength in myself finally
He tried to put me through a refinery
But I dug deep, with no time to weep
I clung to my spirit in hopes to keep
The happy and adventurous me
So here I go, I am finally free
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 3:44 PM UTC
When second sight is on me
I can see your future history
some things distorted
lost are we
when second sight
drops in on me.
An ocular refinery is
visionary gold to me.
Drift into the consciousness,
the universal ballroom,
press
up close and dance real slow.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 7:42 AM UTC
I'm sorry if I'm not willing to just tell you that I think about ******* suicide every ******* day and I hate every ******* person in our school and I want to sleep through all of my class periods and that the other night I was on that road by the refinery going 75 in a 30 mph zone and I thought about just turning the car into a wall.
I'm sorry that I have to talk to 21 a year old clerk I barely know to regain my sanity and not break down and just run away to Idaho.
Jami is my golden thread, and my only thread. I am hanging on by a golden thread.
Three tons of weight just, dangling.
Help me by not helping me. Only one person can help me.
Nobody helped me when I was struggling with suicide years ago. I helped myself. That's who I am. A self helper. I need to be alone to become Marshall again.
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 1:33 AM UTC
We all go through this
Life alone.
From the moment our
Consciousness peeks out the door,
Our perception transforms,
Into Pisces... the water broke and
Out poured your psyche.
As unlikely as it is you'd
Think this was lucky huh?
Well I don't think its funny that
God blessed us with suffering.
Stressed out because, well
Sometimes life's a ***** and
Strife can dig a ditch between a
Family and the next regime. Its
Warfare here, at its refinery.
Progress is missiles launched with binary.
Success is swirling liquor at a winery.
Emissions test 400 parts per million
But Americans don't measure in Celsius.?.
We made it here
All on our own.
With hard work
We built a throne.
Having fled here
From our homes.
Wed rather burn
Than change our tone.
Its too late to get the color back
The reefs are bleached
No need for the anorak,
The polar ice caps are basically
A beached whale gasping for air,
And don't ask Japan where
Fukishima dumped its affairs...
Its become apparent that
Nobody really ******* cares, so
I worship death.
We all deserve despair.
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 2:02 PM UTC
Captivated by such grandeur,
Perpetual hypnosis, holding in amaze-
your refinery,
Soft and fragile on the inside,
Dazed, I examine your beautification,
How man has decorated you with jewels and gems, guarded by angels,
Shaped to perfection,
Your structure radiates awe,
Bound limitless it shackles my fate,
How you entice every being,
With such power you break me through,
And I fall down on my knees and pray, that someday I come to you,
Pray in your presence,
To the One who created this universe,
Hoping to die there and being a part of such Holiness.
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 12:56 AM UTC
I pour my emotions,
letting them flow.
They run and
pool in a safe place
purified and bottled,
then delivered back to me,
I drink them back up, invigorating life.
Dec 1, 2020
Dec 1, 2020 at 5:26 PM UTC
The sun,
the moon
and wind
had been the only elements of nature on my side.
Faniliar smell of autumn that reminded me
just of who you were-
when you were by my side,
your face made the heartache better.
My secrets were once birds that hadn't taken flight,
you caged them.
Photos of you glisten,
Resting in an undiscovered refinery
months worth of "I love you's"
wasted by lies
How nice,
I'm losing my mind.
I've called you "my love" everywhere in writing.
Nobody knows, nobody hears
what I was witness to.
A bird had once spread its wings
from my heart to your's.
Nobody sees,
Nobody can stop.
I loved the words you'd sew together just for me,
Turing "hello" into a song
embroidered by sharp wit and
cutting edge promises.
My friends heard me talk like,
some girl in love-
when we belonged to one another..
Hair fell down my shoulders in light brown streaks, eyes were too bulbuous,
and an obnoxious shade of blue.
I'm aware,
she had pewter locks and silky eyes.
told better jokes rather, she laughed at
all your fruitless attempts to tell punchlines.
For her,
I hope you don't hurt the one you love now,
A bird creates a nest for my heart,
inspires me to take better care of it the next time around.
Nobody sees,
how I try to avoid the heartbreak,
but misfortune snaps off in pieces
and lands in my arms
expecting someone to raise it.
The loneliness when you left
made me ill,
would have done better opening the blinds,
and slipping out of the covers.
But I laid there and wept
as if I was a spoiled child,
with a new toy that was taken away.
I suppose,
this is where I mention I was one of many dolls
upon your shelf,
you'd let gather dust.
Began to develop a sense of paralysis,
just from mention or sight of you.
You said to take care of myself,
but I don't think you meant it.
Because the ones such as;
my brain,
my heart
are always being neglected.
Jul 27, 2017
Jul 27, 2017 at 2:02 PM UTC
Three days in - three days of school - and it’s like I never left.
In school, you can get oversaturated with screens. I like books.
They have a sense of permanence, they don’t glare back at you,
and I want something physical I can grip, markup and push off
the bed onto the floor when I get over it.
After three days of class, I’m asking (no one in particular), "Are we there yet?"
I can speed-read if I have a pointer - I use cocktail picks (swizzle sticks?) - you know, the little olive skewers you get in a martini? I have a collection from all over the world.
If I go to a bar and they have nice swizzle sticks, I’ll gather a few up. “What are you DOing,” Karen, (Lisa’s mom) asked me as I scarfed up several from patron’s empty glasses at the elegant, Refinery Rooftop bar in Manhattan.
“I have a TON of reading to do,” I explained, helpfully.
“Don’t even ask,” Lisa shrugged, rolling her eyes, when her mom looked confused.
The trick to speed reading is your eyes (and brain) pickup more than you realize and people tend to pronounce things, in their minds, as they read, which REALLY slows you down. So, you swivel the pointer down the page, following the pointer with your eyes, and Walla!
You can’t do THAT with a computer screen. You need a book, and when you have 2 or 3 hundred pages (or more) a night to read, you can’t just hold your breath and refuse - like a seven-year-old - can you? Seriously, I mean, can we? I’m asking - though it’s probably a little late (senior year).
Now, of course, not just any appetizer toothpick or fruit pick will do - the selection process can be rather byzantine. They must be a certain length, about 2 inches longer than my finger, so my hand doesn’t block the text, and square ones are the easiest to grip. Finally, if they have a little arrow-point on the tip? Well, that’s true love.
The problem is, I can get a little intense when reading and they tend to break. When my roommates hear me exclaim, “God **** it!” At 2am. They usually know why.
.
.
A song for this:
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
Sep 1, 2024
Sep 1, 2024 at 5:09 PM UTC
Screen Door Always Open
Flashback of a slow train on a narrow track, visions from a car window or old pickup truck
Memories of tasting dirt roads and noisy toads, taking it all in while old wheels spin
Arrival looks like a revival minus the Bible, Wind washed home between railroad tracks next to a river bank
Juvenile sensations sensationalized, taste of mulberry, watermelon, Kool-Aid in Tupperware, refinery a constant scent of tar or diesel, Smell of whitewash not political yet, waiting line at the tire swing
Barefoot brings bee stings, soft familiar feeling of clover between toes, whiffle ball for all, plenty to do for me or you, willingness to play holds highest rank
More fun catching bait than avoiding the old bait and switch, Lessons laid out and kept separate like hooks on a trot line, uncaring for the memories these days would bring
Collecting sunshine brings blistering burns, red skin clashes with red hair, grass stains and heat show no pain, remove both with wonders of the wash tank
No hills but a few Dales, Lakes and streams in between, Grandma Nellies reward a penny for each dandelion dug endless fodder for young hands to wander, like a merry-go-round little minds spin and spin
Few recollections of adults they must have been bored, stayed in shade porch protected, order by age from front to back
Melancholy notes drifting down from meadowlarks or mourning doves, mixed country or Beatles on a.m. radio, sights, sound, tastes enter, mark unique imprints on our soul, carried softly to the end
No future lost when unknown, will we miss it when it's gone, Ciyfied now to those old folks I still give a bow,
next time we see an old house with the screen door wide open is more family's adding to memoirs to their masterwork
R.C.
Jun 12, 2022
Jun 12, 2022 at 2:46 AM UTC