#farming
It is possible
To fall asleep
In a hay wagon
Filled with fresh
alfalfa, pitched onto the wagon
From the field,
displayed behind, now barren,
Freshly mowed, freshly raked,
Skinned, like boys
Who left Harry’s Barbershop
After a Saturday night clip
One never stays asleep
On a wagon
Wagons rock,
Tractors snort
Wagon sleep has
moments when
One drifts in and out
Unaware of a gopher
scurrying away
from the wagon wheels
Unaware of the nearby
Pheasant seeking a new ditch
Resting now and then,
until arrival,
You stack alfalfa
each pitchfork
One by one,
beside the barn
to feed livestock this winter
May 24
May 24, 2026 at 11:51 AM UTC
Twas in the Shire of Calabar that Stanley Pitt was born.
His mother‘s name was Stella and his father‘s name was Sean
Stanley was a bright young lad as far as they could tell
but when it came to milking cows now this is where he fell…
He’d grasp the teat and pull on it until the cow turned blue.
He’d even lie beneath the thing to get a better view
He tried so hard but every day he couldn’t comprehend
why every time he touched the beast the milk just seemed to end!
One day Stanley got a “spark”, a really beaut idea!
He got in the pub while he was sipping on a beer.
He built himself a new machine that ****** them jerseys dry!
Changed the whole towns’ fortunes in the winking of an eye.
So if you’re ever losing hope, think of our Stanley!
For every dog can have it’s day…. And a taste of VICTORY!
Feb 9
Feb 9, 2026 at 8:59 AM UTC
Ploughed fields
stark after rain
standing proud, brown and plain,
this year's crop will be planted soon
on corrugated paper
in the steamy water vapour
of a spring afternoon
Mar 23, 2025
Mar 23, 2025 at 8:25 AM UTC
Reach high into the air, towards the trees
bearing the fruits of your labor.
You have tended them with care for so long,
and now they are heavy. Laden with new growth,
they are begging to be lightened. Reap the benefits
and harvest the rewards of your hard work.
You deserve to imbibe on the nectar of your toil.
Mar 7, 2025
Mar 7, 2025 at 7:55 PM UTC
clouds roiling blood blue
a day of mouths feeding mouths
i feel subpoenaed
furrows being turned in the earth
mouths feeding mouths
my thoughts stimulated
birds and their young
mouths feed mouths
nourishment
May 29, 2024
May 29, 2024 at 3:57 PM UTC
Good brown earth
cracks and folds and tips and tumbles
rolls and flips and slides and crumbles
moved in space by a tractors churning,
bitter specks of last year’s burning
buried deep in a seasons turning
where once the plough horse trod with grace
heavy feet at a slower pace
there lives a fertile planting space
of furrowed ridges, rips and rows
and the hop and hollow of taunting crows
Apr 14, 2024
Apr 14, 2024 at 12:18 PM UTC
A prophet once proffered a parable,
A wheatable teaching and tarable,
Concerning the needs
Of a sowers sown seeds
That require a soil that's arable.
Jul 8, 2023
Jul 8, 2023 at 2:23 PM UTC
We watch it ache and screech,
Tortured for some mercy in its misery,
We’re not allowed to wring its neck
All because the law can love a crow
Every time I mention its pain,
I get scolded. Chastised. Reminded.
This is farming country: and no one loves a crow
They eat the eyes of helpless, newborn lambs
All because farming country loves a lamb
Especially one they can eat themselves
The call on the phone goes nowhere,
Just like that now flightless, punished bird,
Concerns dismissed by automated machines,
No one bothers to come after the tone,
All because no one loves a crow.
Oct 30, 2022
Oct 30, 2022 at 2:17 AM UTC
piloted
plough tills the plot
overturns one season
for one of greater potential profit
Oct 26, 2022
Oct 26, 2022 at 10:31 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I Don’t Miss Working on the Farm
The hay balers are out early in the fields
Headlights outshining late September stars
The din of diesel engines shaking the world
I don’t miss working on the farm at all
The operator smoking a cigarette
While his sunburnt old hands wrestle the machine
His khakis and chambray shirt already wet
I don’t miss working on the farm at all
Yep, laboring in the fields from can ‘til can’t -
I don’t miss working on the farm at all
Sep 26, 2021
Sep 26, 2021 at 7:26 AM UTC
Into mellow fields, all manner of beings go.
The bird to gather bug or seed,
The workers with their hoes;
And, maidens who gather stands of wheat
In dresses that are blown.
Sep 20, 2021
Sep 20, 2021 at 7:10 PM UTC
Furrow face, deep ruts
savage cuts that only time and years can plough
fertile grain
once waving yellow in your fields
does not remain
chaff blown brittle on the winter wind
will settle now and then on barren land
sadly turned to sand
Aug 19, 2021
Aug 19, 2021 at 8:18 AM UTC
The smell of fresh summer peaches fill the air,
a willow tree blows gently under a sunny abyss.
Silence fills the caterpillars cocoon and here I lay under the moon.
Hot night, soft breeze, smell of whiskey underneath the trees.
Crops are a grow'n' and the farmers fiddle sits on the hay.
Bonfires, beers and roasting fish on a smear rod snicket.
In the distance the scare crow stands tall and strong to protect the farmers land.
Animals squawk, hibernate and lock themselves in for a winter cold coming ahead.
Snowflakes fall, warm stew to be made by mom, morning comes, cup of chow time to relax with grandpa Jo.
Seasons pass and Spring is here at last,
muddy puddles, ***** feet, time to plant more growing seeds.
Life is beautiful, so is time, make it right and you shall find,
the touch, and warmth of every goodnight
Jul 19, 2021
Jul 19, 2021 at 3:26 AM UTC
Tongues of flame licked,
Twisted and swam
Among driftwood and husk
Crushed cans lie by boots and barefeet alike,
Hunting dogs snuffle the undergrowth, fur matted in boar blood.
Torn, tired and scarred hands rest between scuffed knees
A brief respite, for all attending will awake before dawn
Cane, cattle, dirt and toil is in my DNA
As a child, legs brown in dust, littered with scabs - legacy of a farming childhood.
I'd watch the fire-bug sparks drift toward the soft evening sky, adorned in cold unreachable jewels,
And listened,
**** destroyed a years worth of crops,
Price of fertilizer was increasing
The price of sugar plummeted
Underneath the lighthearted camaraderie and the shared stories of hunting,
These men were terrified,
Tired,
Losing hope and will,
And I knew,
I knew, that this life would not be mine.
Jan 6, 2021
Jan 6, 2021 at 2:13 AM UTC
Sore knees resting
On the round table's top
Imagine suggestions
No worries about a crop
An empty glass without a rim
Staring at me
Pushed aside with a grin
Energy levels rise
After playing quite a many
Old rock videos
They are in my guts
Make me want to go
On that bike trip
Wind in my eye
Bug just missed
(c)near_lane7
Nov 14, 2020
Nov 14, 2020 at 6:36 PM UTC
Pentagon waist
on a bloom of skates
a shepherd tallies his day
Oct 14, 2020
Oct 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM UTC
I hold the tool. I am the blade. I drive
myself into the fertile ground. I dig
potatoes out. They were buried alive,
but in darkness they thrive. Now the old pig
will feast. When he grows fat I will slay him
to feed me and kin. I don't like killing
but when necessary it's not a sin.
I shall live another year, God willing.
I have long been on the land. I am old
but my sun is not yet setting in the
sky. When I was a child I was told once by
my father you become earth when you die.
If so, I hope my children carve my chest
with blade. I hope I'll yield a fruitful harvest.
Oct 9, 2020
Oct 9, 2020 at 10:33 AM UTC
These clouds of Italy are grown on vines,
Infidels of skies, fruit bearers of wine-veined
Marble, fertile in spite of its own lifeless tableau,
Here thrives the succulent garden of the alone,
Where turns aside the burnt nape of the plowman,
Voyager of the cool midnight seas of the mind,
Up to this arable vine of sighs from outworn gods,
And hears his heart once more give up its throne.
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 10:58 PM UTC
Have you ever done enjoyable work,
But toward supper time,
After a long, long day,
A satisfaction sets in,
Almost a fullness,
A readiness to stop for the day...
I know this feeling.
I understand Robert Frost's poem,
"After Apple Picking."
I loved haying on the ranch,
But after 14 hours' roaring up and down
Long alfalfa fields,
I was content,
Ready to shut down for the day,
Ready to climb down from the old John Deere,
Ready to walk, dusty, to the old truck
Waiting in growing darkness.
I recall listening for sounds of night coming on:
Crickets rasping against the cooling day,
Nighthawks' screeching, veering for insects,
Soul-mourning cries of coyotes,
All teamed against the ghosts of day:
Tractor's roaring echo in my ears,
Thumping memory of lurching over clods,
Dust clogging my itching eyes and throat....
The old tractor, too, was content
Sitting silently,
Cooling in the twilight.
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 6:38 PM UTC
Radiance
by Michael R. Burch
for Dylan Thomas
The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.
The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.
Belatedly he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element that scorches and uplifts.
Keywords/Tags: poet, words, delving, farming, sea, moon, tides, love, metaphor, earth, roots, plot, radiance, pitchblende, uranium
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 4:41 AM UTC
There is beauty in working with hands
That I can never describe in words
Yet here I give it a try, before my land goes dry
Everyday I sow seeds & plant plants
Without knowing what they'll look like
In years to come, when there's no music to hum
Some say it's boring farm work
Under hot sun & cold rain
Yet I keep doing it over & over
For I know why I'm growing
As it's the only way to a world
Free of tyranny, depression & eternal suffering
So I'll keep growing till my land goes dry
For I need to feed the last man on earth
Give him hope & few seeds to grow.
Mar 3, 2020
Mar 3, 2020 at 3:50 AM UTC
They're all doubled over in an aching belly laugh;
I can already smell the apple pie.
Feb 17, 2020
Feb 17, 2020 at 9:14 PM UTC