Her eyes lit up as we drove into the farm
a gorgeous landscape of flowers and horses
a crowd of inviting people
who said they loved her
but hurt her
every day
I could see the frustration
as they told her no
to the simplest of things
because she was female
and watched as her younger male cousin
was always put on a pedestal
for all his "hard work"

This is the place she called home
because although it wasn't perfect
And it wasn't painless
It did hurt less than
The way "mom and dad" did
It didn't cut as deep
As the shards of broken glass
scattered through the kitchen did
It felt like love
compared to living with two
that despised each other
It may not have been everyone's joy
but it was paradise to her

I am a little scarecrow, standing in the farm all day
Made out of straws, twigs and hay
When the crows come, I made them go away
To protect the farm where I stay.

I am here all along
All day and all night long
Guarding the farm, firm and strong
While listening to the bird's song.


The crows that flies within the farm
Keeps on landing in my arms
Preventing them to do any harm
By using all of my charms.


For my job is a hard one
Always under the sun
But once I get my job done
It feels fulfilling and fun.


This is me
This is what I'm meant to be
Come to the farm and you'll see
Or you can also play with me.

I am a farmer at sea
60 sheep, 100 pigs,
geese and ducks on departure

These are frugal rations
with the stew, army bread and beans
No need to slaughter

The beasts just die
so there is always meat
for the cook and the officers

high above my smelly stable
where I haul in the buckets from the sea
and scrub the **** through the scuppers

In the bunks, it is worse
There is the world of the below deck
of sweat, exhaust gases, and the rasping sick

where you sink asleep in a pit
full of poo and ***, gasp for air
and throw up brown tar

“I know that summer ends when my mustards die,”
It’s a secret I was told that belongs to the seasons.
Few alive know of how to even predict weathers:
“Walk you carefully to the edge of a tree’s shadow
Then raise your hand high above the ground
look at the sun until your eyes line up with it—“
He explained to me like an old mathematician
So occupied my father seemed with his calculations
Sometimes just to prove to his neighbors and friends
that tomorrow’s rain comes exactly at three p.m.
Those jagged hands waving up and down
Like a weather vane looking for wind’s direction
I was only a young boy or so I vaguely remembered
When he called me home earlier than he usually did
The seven years old boy cried, refused to listen
To his fathers’ nonsense about a coming ice storm.
“I saved you at the rightful age so you can play on
Or else I would lose you before you grow old
In the shelling hailstones of that one July afternoon.”
He brought this story up to us every single December
His magic in telling the weather hasn’t changed since
It’s me who began to slowly forget all his gesticulating
Under the searing sun while I stared and listened
To him rambling quietly that a rain should come soon.

It has been there for days, wasting away.
Bugs are summoned by the smell of decay.
Furry growth in a moist state,
Flies regurgitate.
Buzz, buzz, buzz all over the Charolais.

Living in a big city is not who I am
but life doesn't always give us what we want
I remember Grandma's Montana farm
and I go there in my mind when things are rough
Grandma was a little thing, not five feet tall,
but she had the courage of a lion all her years
We went there to live when I was five years old
I was dying from the coastal air and was very frail
My brother was a baby and the apple of my eye
We rode there in a chartreuse Ford, bundled
into blankets...there were no seatbelts back then
The wonder of all that 100 acres to roam and play
Chickens so sweet clucked round my little feet
The geese, Candy and Dandy, were terrorists,
hiding behind the root cellar and darting out
to chase me to the outhouse beyond the shed
Rosie the runaway horse chased cars
Grandpa made flapjacks and those not eaten
were put on the cupboard and I ate them cold...
Maybe heaven will be my Grandma's farm...

High on'a farm,
make a needle biscuits
water-up sits creek
jostle potatoes,
pan-*** boiling
-with carrot cake.

Purple sky,
tractor runnin'
time of day,
sun low.

E'er body say,

"Why dou'a on'a farm?"

entered-dat du da future;
not Ford'ed fields.
Face it dou'a future,

"Dat future know it's place."

Sweet devils singin' to me,
sweetened tongue a' beautiful place. . .

"E'erthing set in place, ***** wit I say,
-dinner on-ma tray."