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Napping at midday
I hear the song of rice planters
and feel ashamed of myself.
PJ Poesy Dec 2015
Stomped earth with broad feet
Fastening fresh saplings into
Whole forests
Eight feet by eight feet, the grid
Through winter month's
To early spring
Line of tree planters, twenty
Sometimes less, sometimes more
On Shasta, on Lassen, on Trinity Alps
Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pines
In Mendocino, in Eureka
Planting baby giants, Redwoods
Sequoias in Sequoia National and Klamath
Young men with ***-dads
Knew some old ones too
Women as well, though few
If you could bear the snow, the rain
If you could bear back-breaking pain
The glory is yours
As was once mine
Reforestation
Go plant your line
To be eternally in
Mother Nature's good graces
And kinship known by campfire
In my early twenties, I worked in reforestation. Though weathering most inclement days, as saplings must be planted in the wet season, it was a most fulfilling time in my life. I planted whole forests all over Northern California. The men and women I worked with were so deeply dedicated, and all pulled together to make camping out in that brutal weather tolerable. Some of my best memories are there in those young forests. I often wonder how those thousands of trees I planted, fair today.
the only things I remember about
New York City
in the summer
are the fire escapes
and how the people go
out on the fire escapes
in the evening
when the sun is setting
on the other side
of the buildings
and some stretch out
and sleep there
while others sit quietly
where it's cool.

and on many
of the window sills
sit pots of geraniums or
planters filled with red
geraniums
and the half-dressed people
rest there
on the fire escapes
and there are
red geraniums
everywhere.

this is really
something to see rather
than to talk about.

it's like a great colorful
and surprising painting
not hanging anywhere
else.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
they day finishes with: at last! a schoth reserve
for highlands nomads!
     long gone is the fatamorgana of soberness
coupled with a very softcore soviet sleep
experiment: i chance you to also say:
the soviet sleep experiment is a way to censor
dreams, **** it: another paul mccartney
can write another yesterday into the repertoire,
you can hear of marathon-men who did over
100 hours without sleep, and when it came to
sleeping: hour-long interludes...
as all the p.o.w's realised was the case:
stop this dream-industry of disney! stop it!
nearing 36 hours is nothing,
when i'm going to do a hiatus in Poland visiting
my grandparents i'm planning to top that,
perhaps 48... just to get the glory days of Jews
in ancient Egypt and Joseph the adviser to
the pharaoh: 7 lean years, followed by 7 years
of starvation: what we otherwise carpe diem
over-indulgence - Moses wrote the book
of disgrace... when things turned sour,
obviously he was *******, just a little bit,
from a Jew becoming an adviser to the pharaoh
by interpreting his dreams which were always
in abundance given his lavish lifestyle...
dreams come to people who aspire to lavish
lifestyle, dreams come to people who take no
pleasure from the simplest prospects of a peaceful
hermitic life... they need both the lavish life
and the lavish hope of an afterlife with abundant
dreams... they can't master the opposite:
from simple pleasures that life has to offer:
one forsakes the capacity to the need to dream...
yet those who attain a comfortable Buddhist /
bourgeoisie / middle life: through the ethic of hard
labour find dreams nonsense... only
aristocrats find meaning in dreams, because
they have enough life insurance to guarantee them
the very unentertaining life, hence the Freudian
cinema, and here is their seeking of meaning,
because outside of their sleep nod,
their meaning is already akin to a predatory creature
kept in a zoological confinement, rather than
beckoned to attest the prime element beyond
the classical elements of fire and: where was the
Japanese army bombing the hell out of that
****** tsunami to make the orca-surf shrapnel?
where? nowhere! the reporters were there prior,
i'd swear you could have done the reverse Aleppo
with that tsunami wave by bombing it and
saving lives... but no... atoms bombs were never
intended for warfare as such, they're non-profitable...
all the arms-dealers across the world make more
money from millions of bullets and thousands upon
thousands of guns being sold: atom bombs make
no economic sense... atom bombs make
no economic sense in terms of dealing arms...
the soviet sleep experiment was one of the topics
at the end of today... the other was feline pavarotti
in a cattery: i swear to god that ginger is acting
too much like a bloodhound... moans all the ******
time, i've heard every kind of Tosca, but a cat's Tosca?
never in my life has a cat so many variable versions
of meow... animals really do possess their owners,
but in a way that shows the owners to themselves...
a poem a day: keeps the psychiatrist away.
and back to the soviets, who discovered Yiddish
dream-factory ******* that only applies to
aristocrats akin to Wilhelm Oedipus II,
    i never understood why people desired so much
from dreams, pure unconscious doesn't allow it,
it's shallow dreaming that becomes easily swayed
by a decreasing poignancy of the senses that
creates dreams, and as we've already been told:
they're bound to millisecond intervals -
snoring can be seen as a prompt for dreaming,
but then pure unconscious that's beyond the sensual
realm of pulverising you with everything external
          doesn't allow dreams, because it allows rest...
the subconscious makes more sense in terms of dreams
than what it currently prescribed,
             on the fully-waking hour of what people call
reverse-psychology (popularly), or who people can
influence you and treat you as a pawn...
   in the waking hour the theory of the subconscious
is that it's somehow there, and it's brimming with
theories ranging from the unitary stealth workings
of a superego, to advertisers competing for your
attention, as in: how can this person be manipulated?
that's the strain of thought working from consciousness
where you are said to have: no free will,
no critical approach toward the world with thought,
that you are naive and gullible...
  such people do exist, because they're not working
on the subconscious from the unconscious position,
hence they are most probably highly-developed dream-machines,
they probably even dream in colour and remember
dreams vividly... but take all the things i said
about the subconscious from a conscious pinpoint
and invert the starting point from an unconscious
pinpoint, and all that manipulating dynamic that
the subconscious is supposedly is fed fades
   to simply expose the subconscious as the medium
of dreams, whereby dreams appear from a sensory
hush of all external factors... a few days back i dreamed
i woke in a bed covered in cobwebs and spiders crawling
in them... the last thing i remember looking at?
my pet incy-wincy hanging on a silken web in
the corner of my room... for this to be true,
and for all that pompous subconscious theoretical *******
to go away, to actually work on the subconscious
having a dream reality rather than a reality of
being easily swayed by superego or advertisement
and willingly giving up your will to external factors
that go beyond mere senses... you have to acknowledge
at least 36 hours of the soviet sleep experiment, clock:
no nodding.m i've set the threshold,
the junkies did over 100 hours without sleep,
but they were army material, i'm... dunno.
              a break with an article on melanie martinez,
and then back into today's end...
    it's pouring cats & dogs outside, and will so
throughout tomorrow, one of the street lamps has
turned itself into solitary disco strobe...
   e.e.m. (epileptic eye movement)
           vs. r.e.m. (rapid eye movement) -
the difference? the latter invokes the theatrical curtain
of the eyelids... the former invokes your eyes
having rolled to the back of your head so you only
see the sclera...
but a real life problem too!
in these pseudo-capitalistic societies, companies
have started to do the Pontius Pilate tactic,
they are companies without employees,
what they want are subcontractors, people who
are self-employed, because actually employing
employees is bad business for them: you have to
have a pension fund... and what capitalist wasn't
old people getting money for doing nothing?
most construction companies are following this trend...
but the problem with that is that these companies
are employing useless managers, construction
site managers that should be on a site for at least 2
days a week... even 3... so they can get the knitty-gritty
of organisation done and the project runs smoothly...
but as i've already known for months,
say a roofing company from Gloucester is given
a London-based contract... it has employed a
project manager... who 1st of all doesn't have the right
credentials to be a manager... and this pleb travels
to London from the village of Gloucester
and is on a construction site for about half an hour,
doesn't make any notes,
and spends the rest of the time being a ******* tourist
in and around London, a day like this happens,
an authentic waterproofing problem...
   so you have these flats near the city airport,
and they're connected with walkways and have planters
too... you lay the concrete, then do the waterproofing:
primer, hotmelt, fleece, hotmelt, felt.
                  now the problem, why impose self-employment
and also employ parasitical managers who know
jack **** or are interested in selfies on tower bridge?
only because they can get a cheap train ticket back
to the village of Gloucester before the rush-hour commute?
the problem is simple, or hard, depends whether
there's an actual plan and someone is bothered..
four elements...
       1. drainage matt,
             2. pebbles,              3. filter layer
and 4. ~artificial turf... plastic-like, not asphalt,
     i grant it a status of artificial asphalt,
  or turf coloured copper...
the debate ranged about where the filter layer should go,
but there was no manager with the appropriate
method statement to give... the ******* crane arrives
at 8am, and he texts the day before that he might have
an answer by noon... or that some other manager should
be consulted to the method statement...
i suggested that first: the drainage matt, then the pebbles,
then the filter layer and then the artificial asphalt...
   the other suggestion was: drainage matt,
filter layer, pebbles and then the artificial asphalt
        given that pebbles will never be spread like
a plateau of concrete, meaning there will be pockets
beneath the artificial asphalt to soften the walk
and give more spring to the step...
                  and then i read a newspaper in england
and start to think: are these the only people on an actual
payroll? with safety in retirement schemes?
          i used to think of journalists as daring...
Watergate journalism that did something...
               then you turn on the 24 news channels
and state media is no different to free-enterprise media...
     as people my age say: television is really
a piece of 20th century antiquity... who gives a ****
that millions watched a man walk on a moon
on it... at least a billion people watched the cinnamon
spoon challenge from some ******* on the internet!
     or that guy who gave his cat l.s.d.,
or that guy who jumped off tower bridge and caught
pneumonia and had to be rescued...
still, the rain is ******* down, i've got my headphones
on, and that rebel street-lamp has turned into
a discoteque strobe's of needy rhythmic epileptics -
as every: i count most psychiatric terms in popular
use as undercover poetics, people who don't read
poetry, nonetheless apply psychiatric terms
   an unilateral transcript of denoting them as metaphor(s)
in everyday sprechen; and yes,
our informal vocabulary usually suffers for the fact
that we have chosen a fixed (courteous, hierarchical)
formal vocabulary, that erodes any chanced deviation
akin to a cat-stretching: e.g. (a) so and so died,
(b) oh, i'm sorry,        (c) and you're the one who
brought back the resentful Lazarus?
(d) as if you could have, prevented the inevitable;
a conversation between four strangers.
Ashley R Prince Jul 2012
I found a spoon in my garden.
Could you even call this a garden?
The planters are all full of
pine needles and stagnancy.
Even the bench I'm sitting on
is rotting and covered in ants.

Anyway this spoon was barely visible
among the dead leaves and dog ****.
Not rusty, save for the edges that had been
knicked by a lawn mower at some time
and then bent perfectly
down the
middle.

A memory of playing superheroes
disrupts my study.
Someone was trying to prove their
strength by bending it
"with their mind".

Eventually we tired of our
mind's lack of capabilities
and used brute force to
bend the dreaded spoon
but the celebration was nonetheless
sweet after being able to bend
our mother's cutlery.

Back then the garden was tended.
My mother put us to work
and my
"secret garden" was born partly
out of my imagination and
a lack of reality.

My mother called one plant
"lamb's ear" and I didn't
argue because it was the softest
thing I had ever felt or ever will feel.
Did she make that name up?
Surely, she wouldn't lie to me.

And now that lamb's ear, like
everything else is covered in
a thick, itchy layer of pine straw
and stagnancy. To let the plants
even begin to heal from their
prolonged exposure to cold,
mistifying darkness I would have
to scratch through the
allergy-inducing tentacles.
Push them out of the way.
Dig up the dead, dry earth,
plant new seeds and tend to them
arduously--all while wondering

why couldn't my family just
take care of what they had?

but then I notice this spoon.
I've gotten carried away again
and now I forgot to write about
what I meant to write about in
the first place.

It's not healthy to let things rust.
Overwhelmed Mar 2011
the murderer is a man who
makes a living doing what
everyone jokes about but
who deep down in their so
simple minds refuse to do
the deed for fear of some
shadow conjured up as a
means to control them in
their weakest moments

the murderer lives in our
brain but lives in the hands
of very few

so few of you are killers
so few of you are people
who’ve escaped the fear

the killers are the people
who refuse to die without
a fight/the killers are the
people who refuse to keep
living without having things
their way

the murderers are killers
but the killers are creators
creators of terror, fear, and
anger, but also anguish, and
tears in volume of the ocean

the murderers
the musketeers
the marauders
the generals
the corporals
the soldiers
the butchers
the land developers
the tree planters
the kid sitting there
eating an apple

they’re all killers
all the killers are
all of them and
all of them are
all of us
Big Virge Jan 2021
Now I’m JUST Planting Seeds...

Through Verse And Poetry...
That I Now Use To Speak...

On Yes... REALITY... !!!

So Of Course My Verse Deals...
With DIFFERENT Beliefs...

Like JUSTICE, PEACE And EQUALITY... !!!!!

Because Humans Do Seem...
To Embrace... STRANGE IDEALS... ?!?

As To What People Need...
To Breed REAL UNITY... ?!?

Cos’ The Powers That Be... !!!
Who RULE Societies...

Have Been Planting BAD SEEDS...
That Have Bred... LEGACIES... !!!!!

Like Those That We've Seen...
In... TWENTY TWENTY... !!!

This CORONA DISEASE... !!!
SHATTERED Economies... !!!
Protesters On Streets...
Due To Racist Police... !!!

Leaders And... MP’s...
Presidents And The Chiefs...
of... BIG INDUSTRY... !!!

Have Been Planting Seeds...
That Indeed CLEARLY Feed...

Off CORRUPTION And GREED... !!!

Now It Can’t Just Be Me... ?!?
Who Sees What We ALL SEE...
In Today’s News Stories... !?!

Like... REDUNDANCIES...
Seeds of VIOLENT Scenes...
That Now DISTURB The Peace... !!!

And How TECHNOLOGIES...
Have Created A Breed...
Who SEED Internet Feeds...
To Now Download Movies... !!!

That Some People... CLAIM...
They’re Now Getting For FREE... ?!?

Well.....
Those Are Seeds That DECEIVE... !!!
And Seed FOOLISH Beliefs... !!!

Because It May Well Be CHEAP...
But NOTHING Is Free That Society Feeds... !!!
While ME What I Seed Are Poetic Themes...

That Create CALM And PEACE...
... DEEP Inside Who I Be... !!!

Therapeutic GOOD Seeds...
Are What I Now Receive... !!!

That Help Me To EASE...
The Anger That Breathes...
Right Next To My Chi... !!!

Due To STRONG Energies...
That Have Built ARTISTRY...
That Allows Me To SEE..................

How My Mentality Has SEEDED Beliefs...
That Are FAR And AWAY...
From The Seeds We Now See...

That DON’T Seem So Strong...
Now We See So MUCH WRONG... !!!

Because of BAD DEEDS...
By Planters Who Scheme...
... And Create POLICIES...

To STOP Human Beings...
From Being... ONE Team... !!!

Well I’m NOT ONE To Dream...
But STILL Keep On Seeding... !!!

Verse And... Poetry... !!!
That Maybe Just Maybe...
Could Help Humans See...
The Things That We NEED...
To Create... UNITY... !!!

By... Artistically Speaking...
On How Humans Now Be...

And Constantly TWEAKING...
My... Poetic Themes...
That Have Built LIBRARIES... !!!

Due To My.....

..... “ Planting Seeds “.....
I've planted plenty already, but it would seem that I still have some more planting to do !
Caroline Grace Apr 2013
That the countryside is punctuated with quaint idyllic wonder, is overstated.
For those who survive on the other side of here, we as strangers have our
illusory perceptions of blissful self-sufficiency.
But seeing is not everything.
Our aspirations would be dashed if we were to live amongst its people.

+++

A young couple is putting seed potatoes into the friable soil, hoping for a taste of the earth.
Storms have been forecast for later today, so they've been up since first light -
racing against Nature.

Their widowed Mother strains to watch them from the farmhouse window.
Oblivious to black clouds gathering in the distance.
She can just make them out, backs bent, next to their loaded basket.

Her husband, long gone, left her with empty hands to fill, so she's grateful at her age to be of some use to her family, minding their baby, just a few months old, cherishing it as if it were her own.

At midday, she settles the baby in its pram and begins to sing softly,a lullaby
she remembers singing to her daughter years ago, aware of how rusted her voice
has become, though her audience of one doesn't seem to mind.

As baby's eyes begin to close, she tiptoes to the kitchen to prepare bread and soup for the hungry planters, then taking a a final peek at the sleeping child, pulls on her boots and sneaks out.


In the yard there are pigs.
Solid, rounded brutes, ready for slaughter.
A little afraid, she moves between them, still humming the lullaby – just to feel safe.
Once in the field, she closes the gate behind her, as though it was the final chapter in a book.

In the narrow field, her vision allows her a clearer view of her daughter and husband,
so she walks a little quicker, eager for adult conversation.

As she reaches them, they are sitting side by side on a convenient stone, both straight-backed, looking rather like a Henry Moore sculpture she thinks. They've been bent over for too long.

Sipping on the hot soup, it's as if they've forgotten how to talk – they're so exhausted.
But she understands, she knows how hard it can be.
Once you're committed to the countryside, there's no escape.
Life's like that.

A sudden gust moves the heavy clouds closer. She can smell rain coming.
Maybe there'll be enough to raise the first green shoots.
A distant rumble of thunder decides for her that she should go back to the house
so they can finish the planting.


As she reaches the gate, the wind gathers speed, bringing with it a heavy downpour.
She's glad she's wearing her boots.

At the house she finds the door already open where the damp wind has muddied the quarries.

Further into the storm-dimmed hallway, she senses an atmosphere of ruin -
a kind of emptiness breathing in a dead space.
And from the violated air, a chill freezes her heart with a fearful silence.

The pigs, the terrible pigs......

Her eyes fix on the pram, tipped on its side,
its white covers ribboned with flesh and blood,
and one wheel spinning, its rhythm gently slowing for the final lullaby.

It seems that the sound of the storm is leaving the field, soon to burst through the open door
of the first chapter in a different story.

+++

When the madness of country life turns against you, the unseen future comes quickly.
And the past forever gone, lingers to torment the soul with stories
that have no endings.


copyright © Caroline Grace 2013
Vivian  Nov 2012
Still Life
Vivian Nov 2012
Pots and
Planters and
Rubber boots
Flowers
Cans
and biscuits

Drawing still life
in this rushed life
area
chalk full up
of misfits

Out of place
but in view
a girl sits with an easel

an easel that holds her focus

It would seem hard to do
but her composure is true
Concentrated
Full
of virtues
Annie May 2013
exhaust pipe dreams, gas encrusted
diamond rings
"maybe you're just taking it too personally"
words sharper than the knives
the edges perforated and willing

how can i not take something personally
when you are talking to only me
I understand that you don't know
who you are
but that is no excuse
to treat me
like a speeding ticket
you forgot to pay

i locked you away in my filing cabinet
after today
because not only did you
cauterize your fingerprints
but you erased your
name from my skin
it's like
you weren't here at all

finally we are no one
i am sitting in a room
plastered with
humans
yet
i
feel
so
alone
singular atom
one strand of DNA
not enough to
make anything
do anything
be anything
you made me feel everything
do something
and i did one thing
and it achieved nothing
second hand
counting backwards
cranking it's hours
until there is
only minutes
but even then
it's still 60 seconds
and each tick is a bomb
that has yet to detonate
if you leave
i will detonate
but you can't stay
or I will tie my body
to yours
and throw us both
into the water

letting the sharks
dissemble us like
an assembly line caught
in the VHS tape rewinder
film strung by branches
that I used to call home
shopping carts are the
planters to these trees
and sometimes in the
dirt I find reasons to leave
but you stomp them
out and they
starve
empty
and you look at me
but there is no remorse in your eyes
Alexander Nelson Sep 2013
are you dead yet?
my pillow has the plastic to prove it
take a thought, overplay it, remove it
the whole time
staring at the sun, with eyes wide
burned retinas blinded with truth
shaking in the darkness with vermouth
staring at flesh, of flesh
staring at the truth in flesh, of it
one day I smell the sky, the next I can't fly

bipolar without klondike bars
humor doesn't work either, smell ether
smell ether and breathe
working with strings and straps
not g strings and strap ons
working with and against myself
constructing the pyramid with the town
burning a hole in my back
lies are cement to be removed

Are you dead yet?
Why even ask, viruses aren't living
taking a **** and growing up, caring and giving
dividing my time up to distract
providing it won't sneak attack
I must have ate a lot of nuts
Planters **** you, now I pay he ultimate price
******* and screaming while my vice peaks
slips into, porcelain
no more sin, please, no more sin
Sethnicity Feb 2016
Black on black on black on black
Wood tar pitched and shackled back
Back to back to back to back
Paid in full no matter man fact
priceless pain packed pickings to rack
crack the back of blacks to stack
paper to pay to paper for play and man
Who's black backs crack and snap
Crack sha clack to crack to Sha clack

Blood and labor and words no savior
On roads and rails and rocks on street blocks
Laws to wrap the black lack in locks
dread locks and cops and knocks and knots
Locks and laws and loops from logs
backlogged black laws closed jaws and halls
freedom is someone who knows the walls
You live you learn you see no turn
so learn to know no way to earn
lose your job your home your wife
A way of life is guns and strife
knot in back no friend but lack
black on black on black on black

Run from hoods in hoods and hide
when the moon is full in a land of lies
Sun by day means mad men by night
Free from chains but not from spite
for them deny and then deny
deny deny deny deny
Washed away with whittle white sight
We musta been wrong when white is right

Cops on blocks in shops and hops
Watch for the Man on beat on stops
Crack on corners and broke back moms
peddle from job to job then sob
Mom and Dad Divorced by workforce
Paid pennies *** many "Too dim of Course!"
Get back, You black, No Slack, Take That
can't pay em the same they'll ruin our aim
For Good and Power and money to reign
From hungry to dummy to nummy and slain
held down by Presidents Planters and Pain
The Pain so well ingrained in brain
  
So train a child the way to grow
Get Money, Get Power, Get Good to Go
Get Smart was said, but a hard road to ***
Some Rattle some Crackle
some Dream some Battle
Moving the movement by Marching the Capital
But capital got capped and Anger got tapped
burning the bridges extended tween US
When Fed help medicate minds but menial
The gun clap on black when black on back
burn the bridge we all worked to track
but silent echoes sha clack sha clack
Attack is back so black react

We gamble on gravity with coin of Change
knowing the game ain't geared for gain
ignore the lack of footing in rain
For certain it's curtains yet playing the same
blinders on, triggers on, surprise when maimed
Forgotten the root so strange fruit ain't strange
Aged in grief raged in street
surprise when lame, inflamed, in heat
We old in defeat deranged and weak
should have been focused on governing seats
Youth forgot when work was sought
In a world wide web the mind was bought
Trapped in chains unseen yet wrought
To dream is deemed an impure thought
Wonder why kids abandoned the plot
A dream deferred is a dream forgot
When truth repeats the gears don't stop
When voting is bought the truth gets locked
in cycles, in history, in catch phrase, then plop!
Black and White in Chains Distraught
Distraught no thought with teeth dry rot
the lot has rot and lost its hot
Slavery Antiquity and Dreaming De' mode'
Truth is Questioned and Fiction la Mode'
Truth is Fact too black for show
So Back too Black to Act just mold
Anger and fear our coal to hold
remember regret, let go, too bold
So revolt loose canary for gold
too late to leap the mind will fold
the future looks cold so cold so cold
but the dice we roll and roll and roll...

But Why?
When Blacks in Stacks in Fear; The Facts.
A Belief History of Black America.

It's a mentality steeped in grieving, I can't wait for all communities of humans to get to the Forgiving stage of grief.. the one not mentioned because it's so closely related to Healing.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm striving for the Forgetting stage... but I am not there yet, but I'm trying Ringo, I'm trying real hard to find the God in Me.

— The End —