"woodstove" poems
My nutritionist told me I need to increase my caloric intake and eat more carbs. I asked my nutritionist, “aren’t carbs bad for you?”
She said, “No. Carbs are not bad for you, carbs are an immediate energy source for your body to use, what’s bad for you is not eating enough and passing out at the end of the day like some ***** ***** Now eat some carbs and get some meat on those bones before I order you a ******* pizza myself.”
I should mention that my nutritionist is also my best friend. I call her Lady Reptar, because she is one. A lady, not a reptar, even though she’s twenty times more awesome than a dinosaur and fifty times nicer. She’s beautiful like a ************* daisy in the woods and she’s sharp and wittier than her cooking knives and she’s warmer than her father’s woodstove.
"So, do poppy seeds count as protein?"
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache:
those turkey dinners, those holidays with
the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor,
and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her girlhood's gravy.
A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from
your uncles' collected eyes; their very jokes
creak with genetic sorrow, a strain
of common heritage that hurts the gut.
Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering
of chromosomes webs even the infants in
and holds us fast around the spread
of rotting food, of too-sweet pie.
The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl;
to love one's self is to love them all.
9.7k
All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making of poems;
old, square handmade nails
liberated from weathered planks
split for kindling.
I buried my hands in the bucket,
found the nails, lifted them,
the phoenix of my right hand
shielded with soot and tar,
my left hand shrouded in soft white ash --
nails in both fists like forged lightning.
I smeared black lines on my face,
drew crosses on my chest with the nails,
raised my arms and stomped my feet,
dancing in honor of spring
and rebirth, dancing
in honor of winter and death.
I hauled the heavy bucket to the garden,
spread ashes over the ground,
asked the earth to be good.
I gave the earth everything
that pulled me through the lonely winter --
oak trees, barns, poems.
I picked up my shovel
and turned hard, gray dirt,
the blade splitting winter
from spring. With *** and rake,
I cultivated soil,
tilling row after row,
the earth now loose and black.
Tearing seed packets with my teeth,
I sowed spinach with my right hand,
planted petunias with my left.
Lifting clumps of dirt,
I crumbled them in my fists,
loving each dark letter that fell from my fingers.
And when I carried my empty bucket to the lake for water,
a few last ashes rose into spring-morning air,
ash drifting over fields
dew-covered
and lightly dusted green.
5.8k
Is there a place that one can go
to truly be alone
to escape the hustle of our lives
and traffics monotone
Is there a place where I can sit
notepad and pen in hand
And capture the true nature
of this majestic land.
My needs are very simple
just somewhere to rest my head
with a simple little woodstove
and a comfortable bed
I have no need of music
for nature plays my song
I will fall asleep to crickets
and awake to sparrows throng
I will read alone by candlelight
the poems of the day
And think of friends I left behind
who would love to live this way
But for now all this is just a dream
that one day may come true
And it seems a little closer
no that its been shared with you
Aug 31, 2010
Aug 31, 2010 at 7:31 AM UTC
This is an excerpt of exquisite letter that Kerouac sent to his first wife, Edie Kerouac Parker, in late January of 1957, a decade after their marriage had been annulled.
The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks don't see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.
That’s the story.
That’s the message.
Nobody understands it,
nobody listens, they’re
all running around like chickens with heads cut
off. I will try to teach it but it will
be in vain, s’why I’ll
end up in a shack
praying and being
cool and singing
by my woodstove
making pancakes.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
This branch, this life, the tongue to taste
the bitter of the pinecones. Best
to request permission for my heart to skip a beat,
dare me in February from here to west.
Woodstove fire - ash and flying ambers -
dries the musty grain of cedar essence.
Dancing smoked perfume is rising
Slowly - an inverted lava river.
Its sharp soft teeth the alphabet dismantle
back-taking life to its primordial matter
as history became the final institution.
Why did the idol have to burn, its thorns devoured,
Knotty eyes of wood in mind imprinted -
starry firmament on my sub-conscious?
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
First sun-warmed sand
First boots-and-socks-off beach
First ankle-deep stand in rushing water
First SPF rubbed on my face
First crocus pops up in the yard
(Delicately)
Nearby, a young father begins
to teach his toddling young
how to fish.
(Patiently)
Last high-country snowshoe
Last low-country woodstove fire
Last hot bourbon toddy
Last dreamy days of Pisces
Last longing for lost love melts away
(Finally.)
Early over the mountain
the nearly-but-not-yet worm moon
spies the confluence and I below.
(Knowingly)
Here at the place where things change,
the wild world fills me
and I devote myself once more.
(Wholly)
For one who is in love with the chase
And the glory of all things yet-to-be done,
The true rapture of Nature is in knowing
She is too Big, Wild, and Free to own.
(Like me.)
Mar 19, 2019
Mar 19, 2019 at 1:31 AM UTC
Turn the other
into an object
that's where
genocide begins.
Manipulations
of the economy machines,
Sweeping labels
capture all,
That's where incarceration
to
slaughter begins.
Rapists
cockroaches
infidels
the unclean.
I put this log
into my woodstove
the pill bugs
scurrying for cover,
I feel a heart felt flicker,
Light the match,
Go upon my day,
Never looking back.
What does it take to treat
people
that way?
Where conscious
loving
living
human beings
transformed
by a look
into
pill bugs scurrying
for cover
with a fire storm,
No one
Every one
knows
is
coming.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
"It's a frozen morning "
said the earth to the sun
"Please rain"
said the ground to the clouds
"You're going to die"
said the spider to the fly
"Goodbye"
said the woman
to the sleeping guy
"Don't go"
said the guy to the setting sun
"Come home "
said the house
now all alone
"Let's try, one more time "
said the message on her phone
"Our time has come
Our time has gone "
said the four wheels
on the gravel road
"One more log of mother madrone"
said the woodstove to the cold, cold, room.
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 10:10 PM UTC
little remains
of my grandfather's house:
raw rafters, warped planks with hints
my uncle invested in paint
the windows all gone, time
and twisters took them, and much
of the roof--what is left of that sags,
a silent submission to gravity
a woodstove survives, cold
to the touch, with no memory
of the fire it once birthed, the precious
prairie timber which fed it
now it knows only mourning
doves' song; winged squatters
unperturbed by my presence, as if
they know I lay no claim to now
the old boards have stories
I will never hear: the birth of babes,
reading the Word by kerosene lamps,
the last breaths of men
the songbirds may know,
but they woo the living in flight--a
future of nesting and fertile eggs; they
owe no belated dirge to long lost kin
Jul 9, 2017
Jul 9, 2017 at 1:53 AM UTC
It’s always the same,
Hiding in that pitch dark room,
Like a terrified animal on the floor.
Heart pounding as if to leap from
my chest.
It always starts the same way,
Always . . . every time.
Up through the glass,
bright as a night sun,
The full moon stands suspended,
Big and gold, looking like the face of man.
Is it God I wonder?
Is that him looking down,
Watching me, cowering here?
In this black-as-a-cave room,
On my hands and knees,
Teeth chattering, ******* myself,
Fearful beyond all reason?
I crawl away from the window,
Deeper into the blackness of the kitchen.
Brushing past the woodstove,
still hot from that night’s fire,
Inching on my belly towards the corner table,
Its massive covered pedestal my remote destination,
My safe harbor,
My child’s imagined salvation.
Powerful angry footsteps,
Naked feet slapping pine wood floors,
Coming fast, their rhythmic thump echoing,
With evil resolve and harmful intent.
He’s coming, coming again for me!
I tuck myself up under the big table,
Wrap my arms tight around the oaken tower,
Jam my bare feet under one of the table’s claw feet.
And dig in!
Looking back at the window
and the bright face in the air,
I silently prey, yet scream it inside my head,
“God if that is you looking down through
That window, do something. . . Help me!”
He’s inside the room.
I can hear him breathing hard,
Even smell his vile stench.
Tobacco stink, whiskey and death.
He’s close now.
The metallic swish and trailing sparks
of a sulfur match hastily struck on stove top,
Produce a near blinding flare.
A single wooden taper ignites a flame,
Extinguishing the darkness,
Of my enveloping cloak of fleeting invisibility.
The devil sees me now,
Knows where I hide!
His massive, claw-like hand reaches down towards me.
I tighten my grip on the table and tense my body.
Closing my eyes, I open my mouth to scream!
It’s always this way, always . . . every time.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
Across the blistered gibber plain where flies die in the sand
Through swamps of prickly sago where rotting death is planned,
To stride in windblown tussock hills where wind vanes carved their say
To saunter groves of green tree fern where moa giants did play.
In clearings cut with alkali, tusked elephant would loom
With crevassed hides, Methuselah, once aged in terms of doom.
Whilst high above the rocky crags of ancient mountain high,
The keening screech of kestral soaring up to deep blue sky.
Heavy boots in crusted sand where tiny lizards flee
Amidst the rust red rubble of volcanic rock and scree,
To clamber up the ignimbrite, great Vulcan's steps of stone,
Encrusted with thick epiphyte in lichen's mossy home.
Up into the altitude where dark cloud clusters here
And the threat of rolling thunder indicates that rain is near,
Torrential in it's downpour with sudden squall of gale
Surmounted, all quite suddenly, with a blinding blast of hail.
Staggering to shelter in a tiny alpine hut
To find hot coffee on the woodstove and a curvy, hot young ****
To find us frollicking together beneath a patterned patchwork quilt
Was quite beyond my imagination's comprehensions built?
And afterwards in slumber through the curtains of our room
I watched, in fascination, at a hanging, frozen moon
And wondered, in amazement, at the doings of the day
And speculated, sleepily, where tomorrow's prospects lay.
Blearily I stretch out from the covers, nicely warm
To nullify persistence of that alarm's intruding horn,
Yawning into morning I remove myself from bed
With panicked realisation....all dreams evacuate my head.
Vanished are the alpine hut, the dolly bird, the caves
The crash of rolling thunder and the plunge of mighty waves,
Gone are those phantoms which dwelt inside my mind
Devestatingly dismissed until re-dreamed another time.
M.
Pukehana Paradise
13 December 2014
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 10:09 PM UTC
A debris of specs flow through me as thick cream.
The lull texture of the olive green checkered couch, sleeping.
The scent of the last lingering bits of wood ablaze in the woodstove, waking.
In the early morning before anyone would arise,
I would rub my tired eyes and by settle the window
to watch life stand still for a while.
Few cars passed by in these early morning hours.
Stray cats at ease lying on the thick yellow lines painted in the middle of the street.
Only dark silhouettes of tree branches revealed,
thick charcoal veins bleeding into the glass windows of attics.
An illusive manifesto.
It was silent, street lights still gleaming orange, noiseless...
Birds perked out of their clever nests singing.
This was the only time of day their divine chirps could not be interrupted
by motors, sirens, wood saws, stereos, grass cutters;
their songs often become ignored, white noise.
The sun would swell up upon the tall red house next door.
The world becoming alive, stars being put to rest.
I would stare up into the sky watching the mosaic
black speckled canvas disappear, fade into a lighter shade of purple, then blue.
Jun 16, 2010
Jun 16, 2010 at 7:05 PM UTC
Sitting here in the dark
the power has gone out
so I think about my life
and where I am today
I think about the ones I love
as well as the ones who left
I hear the wind chimes
singing there beautiful song
It's funny how a clanging noise
can be so inspiring to me
with the woodstove
releasing the heat within
warms my body and heart
just like the love of Jesus
warms my soul
Every thing becomes so peaceful
when the power goes out
All the distractions are gone
and it's a time to focus
on the things that really matter.
What would happen
if the power went out on you
who would you turn to
who would get you through
what would you think about
what would you do
when the power goes out
on little ol' you
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 12:53 PM UTC
on beech logs destined for my woodstove
I sat one summer morn, sipping tea,
young, robust, with Whitman in my hand
surrounded by wild fields dotted with scrub
the mist would fill the valley during the night
then dissipate steadily away as the day progressed
I stood witness, it is a high definition memory
if there is a heaven it is a meadow
and the air will be filled with the sweetness
of the grass and the wildflowers
that absorbed the sunshine
under the tree swallows loop de loops
on a morning that I still touch this very day
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
i grew up in a patch
of green
low rolling hill
tumbling sky
red maple picnics
cool earth
roses at the chain link
spring's surprise
play dates out front
shoddy wooden hideaway
to the rear
woodpile-beware!
sister scarred
angry bees collect
red-shingled horizon
white shack
rear view
laundry-line perimieter
prison yard
beware
invisible fence line
irish drunks
right side
wife shouts
captures best friend
back-rear torment
pup trapped
evil about
boys and bruised knees
cheek kisses
and sunset
bike rides
snack spot
woods of death
the sky fed me
my roots
tightly woven
spanned, undisturbed
summer mornings
on the run
heat like fire
pebbles, glass
walking on
escape, run, be wild
dreams your navigator
loose teeth
mother's hugs
father's presence
marlboroughs
motor, artistically
deconstructed
colored red
powered escape hatch
off-license
long gone
tree trunk porch presence
dead bird picnic
red-slatted bridge
fruit spider visitor
tiny rodent winter traps
screaming zia
e mamma
adniamo
basta!
communion veil
st. albans bound
pappa, look!
gum stuck hair
and
ruined sleeve
tumbled jacks
fruit loop bed
times
mas*h
glass box
from the carpeted
haven
orange-smokey
scent
beat downs behind
the woodstove
hair-dragged reckonings
begging
cries
anger passed down
mother to
mother
to
brother
pray, midnight
smoke
sleepless-haunted
hell
i grew in no-man's land
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 8:17 AM UTC
i am captivated
by the fluidity of your text message
you claim you arent a poet
but wow
how you can use 140 characters
to put words out of my mouth
evolving silence from stunned emotions
fantasies flit and twitter
sparked by your wit
the eminent feeling of loss when they fade
out of the temporary reality of my neocortex
and my thalimus
away into the sharpening atmosphere
my discombobulated desires
each begging for my undivided attention
in this sleepy realm of imagination
i contemplate your construction
a worthy demonstration of your capacity to hold
my mind
my eyes
my body
you are great, large, spirited
and your spirit consumes and overflows
my selfish desire to swallow you whole
until you spill out of my ears like maple syrup
sweet and sticky
and then i can have you all to myself
but that isnt fair
to the world
and the good you do it
you have taught me restraint
in my inability to think of anything but you
coupled with my inability to be with you
you manage to intrude into my every thought
conversation
my very being
with magic
your resplendent mind staining my arms
the overly colourful shadow that creeps along my spine
i feel a spectrum of colour
flickering along my horizon
crawling down my thigh like a silk scarf
i am consumed
by your light
crackling and growing
sparking and fizzling
fuelled by my tinder
my eyes swivel and squint
trying to see you through the bright mass you are surrounded by
and i catch a sigh
escape my lips
falling to you
from this new plane of existence you lifted me to
and here there is a woodstove
and a mass of cotton blankets
with a divot in the middle
begging to be filled
and you are there
my hand eases my descent into your warm chest
feet lifted
head filling the gap between your shoulder and your neck
and i rest my hand on yours
you gently sweep your fingertips along the top of my thigh
and you hold my other hand
in life there are times and places
abundant
that we find ourselves falling into
relationships
feelings
people
and so rarely
do we feel like we are made to be there
but here
darling
is where i am supposed to be
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 11:44 PM UTC
Once a staple of the times
(Even in my day) ,
The woodstove was a means
By which God made a way.
A bridge between then and now,
It fed and kept us warm.
The woodstove was a way of life.
The woodstove was the norm.
And ranking ‘mongst the basics
Needed to survive,
The woodstove has served well
In keeping us alive.
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 1:52 AM UTC
Its a wood stove burning through the night
Crank it down
Deprive it of the oxygen it needs
So it can keep smouldering
Conserve its fuel
Damp the heat
Bank the coals
So that they can last until morning
And maybe
At least I hope
Remain energy to create with
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 1:40 AM UTC
**I
February
Einbahnstraße in a
night of black arrowheads/jazz, obliteration perfume/
the twinkle of your
eyes which are engulfed
by youthful nymphs
Fur-lined sable coat
& I
in a jean jacket, hair styled back/
the perspiring windows of Paul Gustavus
open to reveal alizarin (death of day)
velvet curtains
(an appetite for moonlight &
mirrors) the reverberation
echochamber settles over us infused
with alcohol and tea leaves
Basement seclusion,
Deutsch in every direction
Woodstove heat/harsh truths exist in
a Blue Rose of cackling ash, left
disentangled ... duskdancer and copperhue-rooftop Saharas
billowing madly
conversation as a
room full of isolation, lip -
eye, breath -
hairline/drifting to attic enticement,
bedsheets ruffling like
a winged dove
(insertion/devotion)
I am a North American phantom speaking through written paragraphs
& on my second drink a voice
persuasively licks my thigh/come up from the uneven ground
*"feed the moon
relinquish fear
-blindness & burden, parish your
anticipation for fire"*
II
In my restlessness later on, I realize
all I can do is keep my head
high, mimic hope, mimic strength knowing we are
but one brief collision of beautiful
time purposed to split off again
towards a chaos larger than
ourselves.
Remembering The Woman in The Dunes..
"There was a drooling wolf...there was the sun. And, somewhere, he knew not where...there must also be a storm center and lines of discontinuity"
our own repitition of love & labor, warding off the deathhand which always comes back around
... How far do we have to go for lasting tenderness?
III
March
Australian sand/I erase my flesh
in Summer fruit/the air is thick,
I have stopped wearing leather
With iron humility
I task myself to
tillling a steeple into
a breaking cloudbeam
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 3:03 AM UTC
if i am fine
you are fine
like words written on the lines of your lips
i will taste the way you heard me speak
and watch the home videos of our time together
in the reflection of your eyes.
penciling in our heights on the walls
trying to see who could reach the ceiling first
if i am fine
you are fine
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
Birds chirped, the smell of bacon and wildflowers coming from the kitchen, the smell of cedar from logs in the woodstove. It seemed like heaven to her, though she knew not what heaven looked nor felt like. If she could write it the way she studied it in school, those long languid days spent in the arms of her lover and learning the ways of Whitman and Dahn, it would look somewhat similar to this. To the stubble grazing her chin in the night under cotton sheets, not a plan for that day or the next. Only the hearth to keep fed and the nights to keep warm. Heaven, she thought, was a combining of two souls in one spot.
(Though the problem with that is that not only does it require trust in an undiluted state to such a point that judgement cannot waver to the extent supplied by doubt, but that love also requires a feeling that most are incapable of pursuing)
If two hearts are in tune yet only one feels it, love can fall apart. Every single time.
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 4:12 AM UTC
Sitting in front of the woodstove and feeling the heat
Comfy slippers are now in my feet
Staring at the flames dancing in the old firebox
My feet are warm in my nice woolen socks
A February evening at the cottage and feeling no pain
Watching Coach's Corner with Cherry and Maclean
The Leafs and the Habs are tied at a goal apiece
Life is good all bundled up in wool and fleece
Looking out the front window, the snow is quickly drifting
I'm warm and cozy inside and it's quite uplifting
Feeling like a good old Northern Ontario pioneer
I'm cheerful and smiling as I crack open a beer
Suddenly a dreadful feeling comes over me
I must run to the outhouse since I can't let it be
But nature calls and the cold sure is numbing
As I now sit here wishing I had indoor plumbing
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 1:16 PM UTC