PoetryPause Blog - Matthew Ashbrook Posts

I don’t really care for beer
But buy it anyway;
“Cause folks keep stoppin’ in to call,
Sit down and then they stay.

I’ve nothing much to talk about,
I’m perfectly okay
Cloistered in the woods alone,
No need for other’s play.

To occupy the visitors
As they sit in silence perched
Upon a couch or easy chair
Into which they’ve lurched,

I offer up a beer to drink
And another take for me,
To dull the dearth of silence felt
In awkward company.

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I’m cleaning out the lint trap
The dryer has amassed
From a half a load of laundry
That from my body cast.

I wonder where it comes from,
This lint that clothing hoards;
Dispensing it collected
That the dryer then records.

I walk among the byways
That weave throughout my life
But can’t detect detritus
Apparently that’s rife.

And wonder bends my thinking
What else that I must miss
Wandering through a lifetime
Unknowingly In bliss.

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A good chance he won’t make it,
He’s tryin’ to cross the road;
Though his shell might serve protection,
A car is quite.a load.

Slower than molasses,
He crawls across the stone
And no one’s gonna see him,
They’ll hit him quite unknown.

But fate paid him a visit
And lead me to this task
Of Ubering a turtle,
Though turtles never ask.

He wonders if he’s flying,
How he’s left the earth,
When I bend down and lift him
And off the road to berth.

Unlikely we will meet again
In lives we’ve been bestowed;
But today they intersected
Upon a dusty road.

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Within the Amish village flows
The commerce there abounds -
Dairy farms and creameries,
And bakeries to be found

From sunup ’til the sun goes down,
The Amish man the stores,
Eschewing most of modern life
Within their frontier doors.

Directed by the testament,
They labor for six days
Then gather ‘round to worship
When the seventh comes their way.

Or when events or circumstance
Effect the village soul -
A wedding or a funeral,
They congregate in whole.

Idealists in principle,
They guard their means and ways;
Adhering to a simpler clock,
By time and trends unfazed.

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Cocktail hour’s come around,
It happens every day;
Gin and tonic, rum and Coke,
Perhaps Courvoisier.

When afternoon comes rollin’ ‘round,
The urges come to play;
Settling in the dusk promotes
This capping of a day.

Unleashed upon the blood’s brigade
Of cells both red and white;
To influence the cognitive
And blur the line of sight.

A mellow mood descends upon
The spirit and the will
To ease the stress and strains of life
And all emotions chill.

So here’s to you and everyone
Who travels on this ball;
A toast to you on angry seas
To lift you from the squall.

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Protect the wood that’s underneath
This coaster made of stone;
Preserve the finish craftsman’s hands
Have fashioned and have honed.

A buffer to defend the grain
That marks the pedigree -
A fingerprint of sorts that then
Identifies the tree.

Bark had once encircled it,
This tree that gave its life,
Protecting and defending it
When dangers faced were rife.

So the frost from every drink
Won’t drip upon the wood
And tarnish that which yet remains
Where once a tree had stood.

And so this coaster made of stone,
Serves hostess at the gate,
Beckons home the fallen tree,
Fulfilling forest’s fate.

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Sunday morning after church,
The choirs gone, the pews are searched.
Sweaters, wallets left behind;
Hymnals weathered where they bind.

A sermon filled with hope and praise
For God’s own Son that Mary raised.
Those rejoice who once were down,
Find their cars and head for town.

To congregants, they bid goodbyes
Then to the market for supplies.
Resume the lives they left in store
When they went through the chapel’s door.

Transforming into comfort dressed,
Shed discomfort, Sunday’s best.
Families gather through the age,
Sunday dinner’s on the stage,

Another week will come and go
Before returning to the show;
A week of work or school or play,
And in between a few will pray.

A ritual, perhaps who knows
For sure the thoughts and minds of those 
Who seek the solace chapels hold
Find comfort in the hands that fold.

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There’s a deer outside the pane
Of glass so clear to see
That sets the dog to barking howls,
A hunter on a spree.

A puzzlement the canine is,
A hunter by his trade;
In the wild would feed upon
The prey through woods and glade.

While cats and other beasts of prey
Are stealthy while they stalk,
The goofy dog starts howling first
Instead of simply gawk.

Providing ample notice to
The prey he hopes to catch,
Allowing feed to runaway
Disappearing through the thatch.

Perhaps a dog’s considerate,
Give the prey a chance -
Make the contest sportsmanlike,
An equal in the dance.

But I suspect the opposite,
He’s just not very bright,
Without the kibble in his dish 
He’d faced down hunger’s blight.

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The weekend’s come
And folks are thrilled,
There’s no more work
Their week’s fulfilled.

A couple days
Of sittin’ home
Just starin’ at
Their garden gnome.

Monday comes,
They’ll all return
To toil and slave
Their keep to earn.

Watch their lives
Go slippin’ by,
Every year
Until they die.

While in the woods
The creatures bide,
Do what they want,
With grace and pride.

Come and go,
No slate to keep -
When they awake
Or when they sleep.

Who can say
Who lives the best,
Man or beast
Now who’s the blessed?

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I’m grinding up the coffee beans,
Turned the Keurig on;
An implement I ordered from
The on-line Amazon.

The beans are from the mountaintops
Of ancient South Peru,
No finer bean within the realm
To make the morning brew.

From a field, from far away,
A farmer tends the field
Then later he will harvest it
And ship the harvest’s yield.

Upon a boat or plane or train,
The beans somewhere arrive;
Where someone else will roast ‘em up,
From product there derive.

Bag ‘em up and parcel them
To outlets near and far
Where folks like me can purchase them
From the coffee czars.

That’s how I’ve come to grind these beans
Today, this afternoon;
A storied past, much like our own
From start to finish strewn.

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