An Abandoned Factory

A Factory Of Life

By Seth Lesondak

A boy rides his bike past an abandoned factory

Its windows smashed

The door hangs by a solitary screw

Shards of beer bottles litter the front lawn

what ugliness, what filth,what sadness

A reminder of war and hard financial times

……………………………….

Behind an abandoned factory

Vines take in the sun

Bright yellow daffodils sprout from mossy soil

Like a phoenix rising from its ashes

Prairie grasses lighten to beige with with the passing of summer

What beauty, what life, what silence

A reminder of natures loving presence

…………………………………….

Inspired by a painting by Elizabeth Steinhoff

Guilty of the Greatest Sin

This is a story that is open to many interpretations. please be sure to tell me yours.

Guilty of the greatest sin

 

I walk down a dirt road

A road that goes nowhere

On either side of me I see bits of smashed houses

And dolls with missing limbs

Brown dirt shining crimson in the sunset

All I see on the horizon

Is more endless dirt road

I do not know where I am going

 

After walking for miles upon miles

I come to a bush, adorned with white flowers

Alone in miles of empty, dirt floored hell

It watches a disturbing scene

 

A mutated animal bakes in the sun

Not dead, but clinging to a painful, elongated life

A bleached red sky casts light on bloodshot eyes,

Barred yellow teeth

Dry blood covers its face

And a gash in its leg dyes the dirt a murky red

Next to it, its starving offspring moans

Looking for milk that will never come

 

I ignore them and walk on

For I must go the same way

I must live the nightmare I have created

And the death that I have bred

 

This poem is inspired by a painting by TL Solien called

The Seduction of Innocence

this is the picture that the poem is based off of

 

 

 

rowing poem

I am a rower myself, and for lack of something better to do, i wrote a short poem on rowing.

 hope you enjoy.

Rowing

By Seth Lesondak

 

I sit up at the catch,

poised to spring,

packed with potential energy.

Then my legs shoot back,

followed by my torso,

then arms.

I take a quick breath

while the boat sweeps forward,

then return to the catch:

Arms, body, legs

ready to begin again.

 

Gravestones: a short story

this is a short kindof essay story thing. Its partially true, but not totally. still, it sounds pretty good read aloud.

To Walk Through the Gravestones

By Seth Lesondak

 

            Last year I was a pallbearer at my great grandfather’s funeral. It feels like an eternity has gone by since then. Now, my family and I go to visit the cemetery where my great grandfather and grandmother lie in eternal sleep. I like to leave my family and walk alone through the immense tombs. The air is misty with drizzle and the sky a heartbreaking grey. My eyes glance over the names on the headstones. Most of them are Eastern European, like “Bedrick.” The stones in this cemetery are old and dramatic, towering over me like hundreds of gateway arches. The names there are transcribed in a calligraphic Blackletter font that conveys both something fanciful and primitive. I imagine what the people were like who lie under these stones. My great grandfather was a ballroom dancer. As I think this, I see his stone. My family is not rich and thus his marker is small, very distinct against its background of eight foot tall tombstones. I sit with my back to it.

            As I look into the mist, I can see only three headstones. The rest have been swallowed by the ever thickening fog. It feels quiet here, but not silent. It is as if each deceased person whispers their life story to the rare passerby. I can remember back many years to my great grandmother’s funeral. The weather was similar, just more rain and less mist. There I had tossed flowers on the casket after it was lowered into the grave.

            Now I stand and take the cell phone from my pocket to check the time. I still have a good half an hour before I must meet up with my family. I realize how truly alone I am. Even if society discovered a cure for cancer, or someone invented the ultimate fuel efficient car, I would not know it. Here at the graveyard, there is no technology but for the silent phone in my pocket. There are barely any people. It feels like the whole universe consists only of the whispering dead, the towering tombstones and me.      

Chimp Poem

here is a sweet little poem i put together that i somehow got to ryhme:

Chimpanzee

By Seth Lesondak

I wave at the humans who stroll by my cage

Who roil and boil with bottled up rage

Relaxed, I am, in my sunbeam filled room

Till my friend gets pissed off and starts to go boom

This cage you see, doesn’t have lots of space

Our great chimpy talents just all go to waste

It’s sad because we’ll still have no freedom

We’ll just have to wait for our big chance at treedom