"agrarian" poems
Here, on the flatlands
I was put in my place.
formed and pressed
into their neat and presumably safe little box.
It's all they knew.
It is so hard to think of them as once children themselves,
formed and pressed.
Formed from a different time, with different conformists.
There are no manuals when we are born,
you get leftover instructions from previous pipe fitters.
Agrarian raised, like grain fed beef.
Complete with the fears and habits of bygone generations.
I leave one bite of each item on my plate,
with just enough drink to wash it all down.
I have done that as long as I can remember.
I want the whole candy bar, rather than just a bite.
Pressed and formed my Father saves.
He saves twist ties from bread bags.
He saves old welcome mats, and garage door openers.
He buys in bulk, and has two deep freezers full.
Full of freezer burn, tasteless, barely nutritious,
neatly formed and pressed portions of frozen in time Salisbury steak.
It is as if he himself would like to be frozen in time.
He is a depressionite child.
In the basement there is an old dresser that he found at a yard sale.
He painted it a hideous green,
but it has a formed and pressed neat white little doily on top.
In the top drawer there are various expired drugstore items,
some dating as far back as 35 years ago.
"You never know when you might need something in there."
Expired aspirin that has broken down into powder and smells of vinegar.
Vicks Vaporub, in the pretty blue glass jar, that is dried up and orderless.
All brand new and have never been opened.
Formed and pressed neatly in their little containers.
I watch these molders of my life slowly pass away,
becoming neatly formed and packed into their aging corner of the world,
neatly formed and packed into a stereotypical old folks home.
Forgotten, in the way, slow, aching.
Soon all they will have will be memories.
Soon all they will need will be memories.
Neatly formed and packed in their aging minds.
And then, like a comet that has shuttled through space
for thousands of years, millions of years,
they will burn out and fade into dust.
And their whole lives
will be neatly formed and packed
away,
in a trunk
in the attic,
to be opened like a time capsule,
at a later date.
the result of a week with my 94 yr old Parents
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 4:32 AM UTC
Burly bleak plumes roll out aloft corn
Where the dragon fell post spin and ditch
A wretched hulk of ruin splintered and worn
Amongst endless blanch green fields which
Arc with a gust and apart where he treads,
Dragging his silk cape afar from flame
Clueless and concussed to a near house he heads
With a tattered scarf that constricts yet ***** about his mane
Black fists of cloud had boomed around him as they soared
His beast spat metal fire whilst the pale sky turned dull
The zipping ballet of warfare smiled throughout as motors roared
Gnashing its teeth and making forgotten martyrs of them all
Shuddering not from demise rather conflict as a whole
He is as content with death as he is to survive
Just not burn the world and condemn his soul
A horror; men of rule seem keen to keep alive
An agrarian self-dines rancorous and crocked
Half sat, improperly perched from where he was shot
Monsters had come for him once before this day
They took his spouse and his daughter and then took them away
He can hear but does not hark to the battle aloft
It is now like the rain and the trees in a gust
But to the boom and the shake he stands with a cough
And as he cites the invader he sees he must do what he must
The grower limps out with a Chassepot in his arms
As the airman’s hands reach up and he falls to his knees
With beads on his brow the man pleads with met palms
The crofter sees naught but a Prussian blue monster disease
The pilot knows his death, ‘Ich bin nicht sicher, wo ich will gehen?”
The old Frenchman just sniggers as he thinks never again
With the rifle’s slug now spent and the horror sent back to his hell
The farmer mumbles to himself, ‘je dois me chercher une pelle,”
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
She was an old Mid-western woman.
She was a distinct type.
A stock-staple character,
Sort of half Beverly Hillbillies Granny,
Throw in a skosh Betty White,
Mixed in with a lot of that old lady
In Driving Miss Daisy.
Southern Indiana:
The Confederacy’s best kept secret.
But I digress.
She was my neighbor in Buckeye, Arizona,
A quaint agrarian township, way out
At the west end of Maricopa County, which is
An hour from the Phoenix airport, the so-called
Sky Harbor International Airport,
Which surely must be near the list’s top:
All-time most pretentious,
Hyperbolic Chamber of Commerce,
Municipal Boosterisms.
Wikipedia English - The Free Encyclopedia
Boosterism: the act of "boosting" (or promoting) a town, city, or organization, with the goal of improving public perception of it. Boosting can be as simple as "talking up" the entity at a party or as elaborate as establishing a visitors' bureau. It has been somewhat associated with American small towns. Boosting is also done in political settings, especially in regard to disputed policies or controversial events.
So, without thinking,
Walking down the driveway
To pick up the morning paper,
I let it slip:
“How are you?”
She’s leaning over the hedge,
As I bend down,
Picking up the local Pravda.
35 minutes later she sums up:
“I had to go to the doctor last night.
Gave me some cream for my pud.”
A twinkle in her eye—
She, my lascivious,
Old lady neighbor
In Buckeye, Arizona.
She had that sweet Mid-western thing
Working for her, her regional mojo.
And I’m right there on her wavelength:
The apple not falling far from my tree,
Or something like that . . .
I am losing my train of thought, here.
Last poem of the day, I guess.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 8:50 PM UTC
America, land of the free , home of the brave
however, she is trapped by her dependency on commerce.
She has forgotten the simplicity of her former agrarianism.
Buying and selling is her obsession.
America, the plastic, and online society.
The ways of old remain the ways true.
With progress comes detriment.
This along with the benefit spoken of.
It is not always a bed of roses.
The thorns are there America. And they ***** deeply.
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 4:21 PM UTC
The collocation in relation .
The delineation of misplacement .
The inhabitants of Kismet , the third .
The depletion of mortality .
The marauder of consumption .
The lamentation of Raul , the bird .
The offing of defence .
The pardon too myriad .
The submission to Pentateuch , the word .
The agrarian underground war .
The capricious rule of super-cities .
The ebb of vulgarity is heard .
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 11:56 PM UTC
*Curt morning Cardinal , thy gamut echoes the Pin Oak grove
Songs that travel the back country road
Scarlet harper 'neath the cane creek valley , trilling , wild berry , muscadine captaincy
Tenacious , agrarian , amusing wonder* ...
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 12:07 PM UTC
I'm serious. I expected more in a place so near the Bay Area, the most
liberal city in America, San Francisco, that
I would not be kind of ahead of my time but somehow agrarian culture, no matter
how high end does seem to breed a kind of conservatism,
how could it not when it resembles feudal wealth, with busy little foreigners
living in tents doing all the work, as the serfs of yesteryear, days bygone in another land
or not, bearing a resemblance perhaps to the South, well, at least they do get paid and
can't be beaten physically, at least not in public but I digress
my ideas, more than a few of them, from my female vocal cords, and feminine visage
and curves that fill out my dress and full head of hair which is becoming increasingly rare
in men my age still, here.
What I said, suggested, noticed, presented was only heard or appreciated when it was later said
suggested or presented by a male, usually about six at least months later in the endless chatter of meetings and chance discoveries
And I know this is not the place for me
where only a male voice
where only a male package between one's legs
a very primitive way of determining what gets heard,
a way that resembles that of dogs who sniff each other and not
humans who have frontal cortexes and high order thinking
had what I said come from the less shapely, thinner lips of a testosterone laden individual
I think
in this place
they would have been heard
and absorbed long ago
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 9:58 PM UTC
Marigolds twinkle in July's ********** ,
Turquoise butterflies , picture postcard weather ...
Morning dew cools latent heat , hitchhikers
gather on wet blue jeans ...
Agrarian summertime dreams , days of Strawberry
wine , brilliant stars that whispered cool nights ...
Muscadine harvest , fireworks at horizons edge , Roman candles and rocket lights whistled low piedmont refrains ...
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 8:32 PM UTC
I used to be an avid libertarian
Now I am a vocal egalitarian.
I see that Republicans are
Rehearsing to acclaim a Tsar,
Contemptuous of anything agrarian.
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
The USA is not a pure democracy,
The only thing pure here is hypocrisy.
Voters sit on their hands
And applaud the brass bands
Saying, ”What else can anybody ask of me!”
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
The USA is not a pure democracy,
The only thing pure here is hypocrisy.
Voters sit on their hands
And applaud the brass bands
Saying, ”What else can be asked of me!”
My peers are **** near useless bubbleheads.
On voting day, three quarters stayed in bed.
They play a dumb political game
Saying both sides are the same
And let our country drown in the watershed.
Some rail and rightly blame the establishment
As if they understood what that really meant;
They know the country’s out of hand
But somehow they don’t understand
The folks they voted in are to our detriment.
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 6:11 PM UTC
Who decides what historical events adorn
textbooks students read,
hence a starry notion born
grew up while
this lumpenproletariat day dreaming,
Asian aw shucks husky
husbandry furrowed brow gritty farmer
barnstorming across
expansive fields of baby
(barely) barley corn
crib bed crop 'pon harvest time,
(an maize zing genre), especially
when enriched with humus
laden loamy muck cob bra,
then aye delightfully
trumpet from dehorn
of good 'n plenti kernel Sanders gave me
saluting rank and file fool's capped
fecund fashioned earthborn
dunce sing tassels,
versus growing seasons gone by,
when draught of ideas forlorn
despite futilely blowing on my flugelhorn
high and dry reap peat head paltry yield,
asper when this strapping chap
a sweaty backed greenhorn
pondering why agrarian laborious life of toil
omitted as part and parcel of "newsworthy"
posterity sagas deeming
shenanigans of highborn
and/or "FAKE" headlines crowd inborn
noble folks,
who grease palms of industrialists,
whose quaking self importance
thwarts aside rural cosseted
krummhorn grounded bumpkin mor'n
how kapellmeister coaches bourgeoisie
helping determine
zero absolute value of newborn
fated to slave away
till body electric outworn,
yet paradigm shift of
(butter late then ever)
jiffy popcorn version
sown by seeds of Jethro Tull,
whose bonhomie with brio didst reborn
agricultural revolution took root,
whence before long some did scorn
and lamented machinations
ordered simple existence ripped and torn,
where antithetical views suppressed
and unto revolutionaries
became legion and well-worn.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 7:34 PM UTC
*To burst through the blue cats eye
From the surety of Earth at my feet
The Pleiades and I will meet
Laughing at gravity bound-
sheep
Traipsing asteroid streets
Calling a comet my own
A crater on Mars could be my home
Jupiters agrarian lovers
Fed by the red stars above
Waving bye to the blue marble
To forever explore
To feed galactic wonder forevermore* ...
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 2:42 PM UTC
I used to be an avid libertarian
Now I am a vocal egalitarian.
I see that Republicans are
Rehearsing to acclaim a Tsar,
Contemptuous of anything agrarian.
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
The USA is not a pure democracy,
The only thing pure here is hypocrisy.
Voters sit on their hands
And applaud the brass bands
Saying, ”What else can anybody ask of me!”
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
The USA is not a pure democracy,
The only thing pure here is hypocrisy.
Voters sit on their hands
And applaud the brass bands
Saying, ”What else can be asked of me!”
My peers are **** near useless bubbleheads.
On voting day, three quarters stayed in bed.
They play a dumb political game
Saying both sides are the same
And let our country drown in the watershed.
Some rail and rightly blame the establishment
As if they understood what that really meant;
They know the country’s out of hand
But somehow they don’t understand
The folks they voted in are to our detriment.
My peers are equally divided bubbleheads
Half of their brain cells completely dead.
Their parents taught them so little
That they are caught in the middle
They believe each word their crazy leader said.
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 3:10 AM UTC
Brainstorming, concentrating
panning... for poem
idea shattered brew
tilly by deafening seasonal
greensward cutting crew
contracted throughout summer to mow
leaves of grass
every Tuesday, which drew
attention toward fragrant aroma
seeping into nostrils
of me - match hew,
heavily negated true
quiescence courtesy ear splitting
soundcloud of driving
mowers even moo
ving bovines would
clap cloven hooves
over soft as lambs wool
sensitive hearing micro corkscrew
innards, viz their *****
shaped audiological
anatomical accouterments -
cow word lee lowing Jew
pitter Io sliver by jove whew
once silence returns
(after cessation rip snorting bedlam)
savoring the hum of nature anew,
and moost likely relish
fresh cut leaves of grass
as I inhale analogous
delectable waft of homebrew
albeit molecules borne aloft
after sharp heavy duty blades
of industrial riding mowers bestrew
higglety pigglety, helter skelter
juicy fruit chlorophyll rich
plants releasing nectar
sweet as honeydew
olfactory imbibing nostalgic view
of yesterday, when agrarian farmsteads
populated landscape picturesquely
anointing, exuding, messaging...
perfuming faint clue
intimating rural lifestyle forebears
hapt tubby privy too,
where deer and antelope played
unaccosted by impending urbanization,
hence such idyllic serene rue
man nation - visage you
would probably concur
as most divine comity
worth more than any buckeroo
could purchase - vestiges vanishing
without a trace adieu
mother nature nowhere found
except caged up within zoo.
Aug 6, 2019
Aug 6, 2019 at 3:33 PM UTC
and you go like around nothing acting upon
momentum and the impetus
the maximum speed just slightly this side of the light
gravity-less atmosphere the better to drag your
*** through the after day physical retch
the warp speed drag
a day without bounds tends to make you stretch
left bottom lip hanging right eyelid droop
afraid to look
in the mirror above the transporter porcelain full of puke
that's how this space-time warps
a twentieth century dude
now alive breathing all this twenty-first century
technological slime
hiding away in an eighteenth-century agrarian community where
half the people are ****** I think,
maybe not, just they got bald patches and long crooked noses and big arms on skinny tall torsos
look like human ancestors in a way, they know everybody,
clusters of them in two bedroom houses and relatives with tattoos of
names under their glossy dead eyes hair that stands up on end
blossoming smells.
But, hey, I'm one them now. Losing my integral data on a strata set
confused.
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
Two hundred forty two
(12.1 score) years ago
countless stripling soldiers
strapping farming homeboys
healthy agrarian lads
raised among generations
in summer re:
offspring original settlers heirs
family acreage encompassed
wide uninterrupted forested swaths
across sprawling vistas
sparsely populated enclaves,
now heavily industrialized
lovely bones occupying
unmarked never known graves
buried amidst avast
cleft rapacious urbanization
long forgotten innocent youths
hailing within then bucolic
Montgomery, Delaware and Chester county
forsook their young precious lives
voluntarily promising sons
risking life and limb
more often former versus latter
sacrificing stripling flesh
encompassing urbanized tracts
quite familiar to yours truly
suddenly made aware
unbeknownst till yesterday
informative literary handiwork
titled "A Glimpse of Freedom"
engagingly written by Douglas Shupinski
details innocently naive country bumpkins
sacrificing potential sweat of brow,
albeit grueling labor
fostering holistic existence
transforming boyz to men
hardened green soldiers
into battle weary fighters
regarding, kickstarting, envisioning
inchoate cause named freedom
emancipating fledgling America
against British throne
awareness percolates,
perturbs, permeates psyche
synchronizing, manifesting, galvanizing
how past historical events
within close proximity,
where I mostly resided
since birth, now experience
absorption, communion, edification...
with dead souls
nearly deathly quiet
only most perceptive can detect!
Jul 8, 2019
Jul 8, 2019 at 6:04 PM UTC
I mean, like, veg, you couldn’t expect me to eat
A fellow vegetable, a kindred soul
One in spirit with me, with woody cells
Made in the image of the Great Carrot
The animals don’t feel pain like we do
They have no sense of being, they have no soul
And humans need to be farm-raised in pens
And really, veg, they’re happier that way
I’m studied in all such matters agrarian
And, yum! I love me a tasty vegetarian!
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 3:34 PM UTC
and the french girl was saying
all about how to topple
the patriarchy;
American man
American man
agrarian origins
an itch for war,
once upon a time
a puritan,
from what I've heard
with dreams of white Christmases
in days of old
I remember, what you were
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:48 PM UTC
Malodorous , agrarian & blue **** cold ...
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 12:51 AM UTC