"agricultural" poems
“Being a farmer is like being a priest;
you take a vow of poverty
and make a pact with the Lord
that no typhoon will come
and destroy your crops.”
In the rise of sedentary human civilization,
The nation’s agriculture
Became the key expansion.
Its history dates back thousands of years,
With its development,
Has been driven and defined –
By different climates, cultures, and technologies.
The Filipino farmers:
Are they now a dying breed?
Numbers of small farms has dwindled,
With workers opting for city life.
But this trend could exacerbate food insecurity!
Yes, in an import-dependent country –
Already struggling to meet current food demand.
In the face of growing losses,
And from volatile weather,
To new-fangled farming tech,
Limited education makes them less receptive.
What took such toll on the agricultural sector?
Maybe the farmer themselves,
The investors, the buyers – maybe.
Now, it’s due to the government policies,
Our programs are good, yet so weak.
There’s excessive reliance on agricultural imports,
And corruption on the upper level.
Compounding the problem
Is a younger generation –
Largely, leaving rural areas nationwide,
And depleting the pool of potential agricultural workers.
They say it’s too late to do something;
But the mind-set of the younger generation
Still we can change
And make farming appealing once again.
(9/8/13 @xirlleelang)
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:02 PM UTC
By now,the seed varieties of the world,
may have been attacked beyond recovery
by wars of pretense and relapses.
We are still learning
how to handle it properly.
We tend to say.
Some will talk and plan over dinner parties,
over TV or Radio. Most will leave
it behind like another corpse
of lessons thrown to the gutter,
like a dead *** on another Sunset Boulevard.
Iraq's seed banks
we blew up in the 2000s.
In various places in Asia
and the Middle East, places of life and cultured
varieties gone in an instant.
Echoing our imprisoned
ignorance and drives for more instant goods and services.
Indian farmers have committed mass suicides after
their god Hanuman was used by a chemical giant
to sell poison seeds and renewed
bondages of indebtedness.
One question a stranger asked a group of writers on tour
was not what their poetry or books were about,
nor why they wrote it, but how writing may and
may not be helping as we make decisions and solve problems now?
Once agricultural lands turn into new promises
of commercial buildings. Cities of inaccessible towers and
abandoned malls in America, Spain, China, and Russia
feeds us back our own echo.
Like converted uses of lands, our humanity
is converted into inanimate collections and status
symbols of some players or parties. As we face
our continuing struggle between
our oppressor-selves and our genuine roots.
Despite the perversions,
inside vicious habits of waste
where we glorify promises of war and efficiencies,
we continue to be entrusted with the ongoing lessons:
Rarely do surviving generations through famine, war and diseases,
throw away means to live, or destroy any kind of seed.
Every day we wake to the ruins and remains of
Our living poetry, word spaces, hours, exchanges,
gains and losses, stopping and going. This time,
not just for fires of anguish or unnecessary losses,
but for each other's midnight lamps.#
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 12:42 AM UTC
KENYA
K….Kenya my beautiful country
E ….earn honors and respect
N …none is like you my country
Y …you shine brighter compared to any other
A …across the world, you light brighter that the sun
The beauty sceneries of the green vegetation
The dark color of the people of Kenya
The arable land in Kenya
The mines
The animals and tourist centers in Kenya
The presidency
The politics
The hot springs
The digitality in Kenya
The economic growth in Kenya
The agricultural sector,
The flag of Kenya
The education sector in Kenya
All make me feel proud of Kenya….
And I feel so good to be Kenyan.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
Far back in the ages,
The plough with wreaths was crowned;
The hands of kings and sages
Entwined the chaplet round;
Till men of spoil disdained the toil
By which the world was nourished,
And dews of blood enriched the soil
Where green their laurels flourished:
--Now the world her fault repairs--
The guilt that stains her story;
And weeps her crimes amid the cares
That formed her earliest glory.
The proud throne shall crumble,
The diadem shall wane,
The tribes of earth shall humble
The pride of those who reign;
And War shall lay his pomp away;--
The fame that heroes cherish,
The glory earned in deadly fray
Shall fade, decay, and perish.
Honour waits, o'er all the Earth,
Through endless generations,
The art that calls her harvests forth,
And feeds the expectant nations.
8.6k
across the Liverpool plains
the gas exploration
goes on without
being contained
drilling is never ending
holes sunk
which invariable
cause in the farming community
a disquieting funk
Santos
cares little
for the environment's
well being
its pipeline
must garner
all the gas
in the stream
landholders and those in the green party
have banded together
to protect the agricultural lands
from the rabid abuse
which the company
will wrought on
the water table
flora
and
fauna
they cry ****
as the company
exploits
the countryside
making of it
a harlot to be pillaged
and misused
the state government
is at sixes and sevens
so many competing
interests
must be listened to
should it give
Santos
permits
to
**** and plunder
or
will
it
allow
the
broad acres
to
continue
without sunder
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 7:35 AM UTC
I was raised in the wild
With all the defiled
So my mood was mild
While bodies were piled
I was a lonely coyote
The other creatures didn't know me
Because I slinked in the shade
To avoid their detection
Loneliness is what I had to trade
To pass their inspection
Other animals couldn't brave the weather
Or their fragile arteries were severed
They laid there dead
I wondered if they ever lived
It went to my head
What this world can give
I saw the buzzards
Ring their buzzers
Then the maggots fed on their brain
While not understanding their pain
These images did me no good
While I was stuck in the woods
And I couldn't see the forest through the trees
I was lost
If I didn't find a home by winter I would freeze
In the frost
I tried to find a home in hollowed trees
But I was chased out by a bunch of bees
And the darkened caves
Seemed like shallow graves
When that's where bats play
But peaceful open meadows
Left me susceptible to attack
Everything seemed mellow
So I had to watch my back
Winter was approaching
And I saw no solutions
The cold air encroaching
Like frigid pollution
But my shady luck shifted
Once I was graciously gifted
A powerful and majestic horse
That put me on a better course
I ride the steed with a leather saddle
Made of skin stripped off simple cattle
It took the strength of an ox
To hold down this fox
Yet my domestication
Calls for celebration
Because now I live in a house
Without having to hide like a mouse
I can strut like a peacock
With a bird of my flock
It's a form of animal husbandry
Because you're in love with me
I'm the insistent critter
From a different litter
That saw life wither
From damage inner
I was a raccoon digging through the trash
Now I'm a phoenix rising from the ash
You're an agricultural guy
So vultures circle the sky
Looking to harvest your bountiful crop
They must smell death underneath it
Their presence makes my heart drop
And all I want to do is defeat it
But even as they get near
You remain here
We stand together as scarecrows
In a defensively unified paired row
This is the delightful day
You end all my wild ways
And eliminate my suffering
With your animal husbandry
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
They're burning the stubbles of yesteryear's fields
Before ploughing.
Walls of fire around every farm.
Smoke blends with the smell of pig's furtilizing manure,
And whenever my nose wrinkles up
I remember my father's words:
*It's the result of millennia of agricultural tradition.
It's the smell of money.
It's the smell of soil to bread.
It's the smell of something far more important
Than nasal comfort.*
He had me at
-Where he should have said-
Organic.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 10:30 AM UTC
KENYA
K….Kenya my beautiful country
E ….earn honors and respect
N …none is like you my country
Y …you shine brighter compared to any other
A …across the world, you light brighter that the sun
The beauty sceneries of the green vegetation
The dark color of the people of Kenya
The arable land in Kenya
The mines
The animals and tourist centers in Kenya
The presidency
The politics
The hot springs
The digitality in Kenya
The economic growth in Kenya
The agricultural sector,
The flag of Kenya
The education sector in Kenya
All make me feel proud of Kenya….
And I feel so good to be Kenyan.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 2:28 AM UTC
My heart isn't for the picking like a ripe Apple,
It's been damaged, it's been bruised, it's been carved with a scalpel.
And there's one common factor in every ounce of pain,
It all stems back to you and my tears fall like rain.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
I am the young girl running around the house,
looking for the pony,
on Christmas morning,
while the ship is slowly sinking,
in a manure flavored sea.
I am the armless tennis player that
is convinced he will defeat Roger
in less than an hour,
using just one ball, over and over again.
I am Roy Wright at the beginning of the trial,
with a big stupid smile in my pocket,
and a tinny black book in my soul.
I am the faithful survivor of unfaithfulness
and I will be the one that lands on his feet,
in Scottsboro heaven.
I am Bartolomeo V, the one with no vendetta,
having a croissant,
waiting for Nicola to shave, before we take off in one of
Rothko's paintings. May the 5th be
with the ones who actually did it.. and, you know what?
I honestly think Cronaca Sovversiva is a great title,
even though I haven't read the ******
thing and I have no sympathy,
whatsoever, for any anarchist.
Hell! It's hard for me getting my **** together in complete order. I don't want to think what would become of me
in complete anarchy.
I am the one that wakes up every day
with a stupid smile under his nose,
not remembering the scent of yesterday's failure.
The one that starts dreaming as soon as he gets up,
ignoring the fact that he might be an ignorant
*****
with no desire to go to outer space,
but with huge hopes up his sleeve for
M. Damon and his agricultural knowledge.
I am in favor of all fancy schmancy Earth saving knowledge,
and I am aware that all that space debris in my head
will do some serious damage one day.
If they ever figure out how to get it all in.
I am the tic, that will come after the tac-toe, this time, and not the other way around!
the encore of every good concert,
the yin for the panda ****
the slim leg for the flamingo,
the gambler,
the rambler,
the day rider.
I am the Syrian boy that just learned to swim and
all of this infinite blue soup
is nothing more than a Saturday stroll.
I will get in the back of that truck and I will breathe
the purest air that someone could ever breathe,
I will sleep the sleep of reason and monsters will not be produced.
You have my word!
I am the skin before the needle shoots up
all its ink.
I will be perky. I will be green.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 5:58 AM UTC
agricultural sabotage remains incoherent,
not that it’s a secret that moneys evil.
Rio+20 on the health of our planet,
ignore the ******* thing that's causing the most damage.
you're all taking the **** it's a miss not a hit.
Forget shorter showers and the flick of a switch.
Transportation is not the only problem.
whats the biggest ******* industry
causing global warming?
The UN doesn’t even ******* know.
When they served up beef, I thought it was a sick joke
Smoke and mirrors, gas and granite
The meat industry is killing our planet
And as humans, we tend to digress.
Makes sense how we all eat things we cannot digest.
you smiling? who do think you're hiding from?
You still believe in fairy tales and I'm the one,
who's dumb
Because I actually give a **** with an open third eye I can see the grit.
The pain, the torture that we inflict, then ironically endure when we swallow that ****
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
I took ten random words from a dictionary and used each of them in a line, in the direct order I chose them. All the words acquired, start with a capital letter. I want to hear others attempts! Give it a try, and list your title in the comments! :) Enjoy!
an Agricultural paradise, we control mother nature's life
Overmaster's of her laws, her reigns we hold precise
our Alimentative elixirs? From her womb we choose to thieve
her Hems we tear and take our share
a Ghostly life to lead
her Briny tears an ocean
she's still Endearing and motherly
yet we treat her like a ***** Bathhouse
pure Artificial stupidity
i truly pray for her Ascension from humanity.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC
a malignant cancer spreads
in prime agricultural land
the Santos Company
gas wells ever expand
the waterways and aquifers
sullied with material not healthy
the corporate entity
aspiring to be more wealthy
campaigners outside fences
at drilling locations
wanting to stop the company's
sick infiltration
the fight to preserve the family farm
has been unheeded
company profitability
must be well seeded
a state government not listening
to scientist's info
seemingly it is more interested
in the gas field's revenue flow
as time goes by the waterways
and land will become sicker
all in the name of the Santos brands
noxious sticker
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 8:15 AM UTC
"You're ******* your life away Bobby," screamed Auntie Abhaya in her native tongue. Malayalam has many nuances and maybe a better translation is, "lightning currents from your privates and blast River Ganga, streaming your soul away." Dravidian poetics go as such and Auntie Abhaya seemed to have quite dramatic flare. In any case, cousin Bobby was once again, drunk. Auntie Ay, as we lovingly referred to her, in her fearless way, was having nothing of it. Worse yet, seems Bobby had funded his ****** with rupees stolen from Auntie Chhaya's purse. A storm of tears she was, in the corner of the humble hut they all resided in, in Kerala.
Kerala's backwaters wash in from the Arabian Sea. Tropical delicacies abound; markets filled with fish, pineapple and coconut groves, and an array of spice that keep the main agricultural commerce of India most enticing to the rest of the world. Yet, life earnings are hard and for some hard habits easy to pick up. This was truest in Bobby's case, though he did try and try to make his family proud.
As I was only a guest in this loving but burdened home, and recognizing a family crisis at hand, I and my traveling partner put forth finances lost to ensure our safe return to Mumbai north in Maharashtra and not embarrass our host family any longer. Though we had touched a Garden of Eden, the lesson of banishment was still at hand.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 9:13 AM UTC
increasing the yield potential of a crop
has been the aim of Monsanto
with great efficiency
this company has hit on a jackpot
it holds a monopoly on agricultural products
yet Monsanto are selling
a very dodgy line of seeds
the cornmeal and wheat
has not a taste
which is truly sweet
people must become educated
in what they eat
the Monsanto Company
don't tell of adverse findings
about products that it vends
they bring many cancers
which affect men women and children
we all want a wholesome loaf of bread
one that hasn't had it wheat
genetically tampered with
we all deserve clean and unadulterated
food on our plates
to decrease those ever rising
cancer rates
Monsanto is a company
who cares little for our health
Monsanto is a company
who has only an interest
in making profits and wealth
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 10:46 PM UTC
May Day
Fertility way
Beltane honours life
A peak of Spring
Earth energies are most effective
Let it begin
All busting with potent fertility
The wheel of the year,
potential becomes conception
Nature is fair
Fire festival glare
Ireland celebrations
Feast of Beltane
Latter times,
Mary's day,
it was called in the rhymes,
they say
Bonfires marking,
the coming of Summer
Granting luck to people's livestock,
without mock
The first day in May Irish holiday
Beltane rituals,
counting young men and women,
picking blossoms in the woods,
lighting fires as the evening stood
Matches for marriages all good,
right there and then,
or Summer Autumn would be when
Medieval modern Europe holiday
Return of Spring observance
Probably originating anyway,
in ancient agricultural roots
Rituals and perseverance,
The Greeks and Romans,
held such festivals
People and their cattle,
would walk around bonfires,
and between rattle
Sometimes leaping over,
embers and flames
All households,
fires doused and re-lit
from the Beltane bonfire
Accompanied by a feast,
with some food and drink,
offered at least
May Day also called Worker's Day,
or International Worker's Day
Commemorating the historic,
struggles and gains made,
by workers,
and the labour movement,
reins without jerkers
In the United States and Canada lakes,
a similar observance known,
as Labor Day partakes on the first,
Monday of September not May
Beltane also sometimes,
goes by the Name May Day
This holiday strongly,
associated with Pagans,
they say,
for fertility come what May
The origins are in ancient play,
across the world this May Day
© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney
May 1, 2022
May 1, 2022 at 5:45 AM UTC
The Plains of Africa
when you touch down here on the African plains
you can almost immediately feel the pains
of a life that grew from nothing at all
greatness achieved but still the blood stains
cultures of complexity started here
somehow they understood but still there was fear
they created technology science and a division of labor
and learned somehow to live with their neighbor
they created transportation writing and math
they started it all they created the path
without their skills in agricultural tricks
we could have never grown just chewing on sticks
and though it all started here so long ago
this area suffers did they forget what they know
this is where my future all began
here was the beginning the beginning of man
we owe it all to these beings so humble and caring
we need to find an end to all of their despairing
it seems funny that they were the ones stretching the brain
and now they need educating when there is no rain
infestation of some kind has continually been a thorn
either insects or bacteria for even the newborn
yes they were our beginning the life that we know
we owe our tears and support to help them regrow
David Nelson ....
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 6:31 PM UTC
Here I am again
Alone At the library
Human existence can be strange indeed
I think I will go for a long hike this afternoon
I just need to record something interesting to listen to
I definitely know about solitude
And it helps me to know myself
The Shemitah is the seventh year
In the seven year agricultural calendar of Israel
The current Shemitah ends September 24, 2015
Since 1973 every US financial collapse
Combined with subsequent recession
Has occured during Shemitah 100% of the time
This includes 2001 and 2008
Perhaps another collapse in September of this year
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 4:34 PM UTC
my mother was born a gardener
and my father became one
through patient snap peas and
angry red tomatoes
he seeded and watered and waited
while my mother grew hibiscus in the mountains
and plums in the shade
i was born a painter
but its tank me years to pick up a paintbrush
and my brother was born a poet
but i sincerely doubt that he’ll ever show it
i mix my paints on my palette of flowers
and my brother goes to meetings at banks
My other attended the only Agricultural High School available to her within a 40 mile radius of her South Philadelphia home. This was not a coincidence.
My father attended the best athletic conference in his affluent suburban community. This was.
She started out watering plants in fast food joints, arranging flowers for junior proms in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. When my father met her, she only ate lettuce and seeds because that was all she could manage to put in her body.
My father kneeled to the ground, saw the soil beneath her fingernails, and fell in love.
I can only love men who garden. I can only be a daughter of the earth because of them.
I don’t like terrariums because they frustrate me. Life trapped behind glass, that I cannot touch, or feel, or smell. I cannot water, I cannot fathom to even slightly disturb their existence, no matter how desperately I want to.
I’m getting my hands ***** touching old soil. I wipe it on my skirt before I touch the sweat on the back of my neck. I’m planting forget-me-nots and basil. I don’t even know if those go together. But I am putting them deep in the ground and it occurs to me that in a few weeks, I might not even remember them. They might die and become some stupid memory, a part of my dinner party story vernacular, Or maybe waiting for them will change me, will allow me to commit as a meditation on earthen peace.
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 11:06 PM UTC
The Plains of Africa
when you touch down here on the African plains
you can almost immediately feel the pains
of a life that grew from nothing at all
greatness achieved but still the blood stains
cultures of complexity started here
somehow they understood but still there was fear
they created technology science and a division of labor
and learned somehow to live with their neighbor
they created transportation writing and math
they started it all they created the path
without their skills in agricultural tricks
we could have never grown just chewing on sticks
and though it all started here so long ago
this area suffers did they forget what they know
this is where my future all began
here was the beginning the beginning of man
we owe it all to these beings so humble and caring
we need to find an end to all of their despairing
it seems funny that they were the ones stretching the brain
and now they need educating when there is no rain
infestation of some kind has continually been a thorn
either insects or bacteria for even the newborn
yes they were our beginning the life that we know
we owe our tears and support to help them regrow
David Nelson ....
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 9:31 AM UTC
Before the Dawn Of Agriculture men like ME where slapped into the shadow of ****** shame but now who needs muscles or chiseled chins, great size or strength, a lover’s passion or a manly countenance ‘cause for ten thousandyears now I can persecute any female for infidelity towards ME and hold paternity privilege over MY biological children because we exceptional farmers invented marriage to destroy human sexuality by enslaving women with MY property for *** so I no longer need to share or compete or settle for an alpha males’ sloppy seconds within foraging groups that are forced to share what they carry with them instead of our enforced legal couplings that takes the innocent, primal pleasure and mystery out of *** by connectingshtooping to birth thanks to dirt MY dirt MY very own thousand acres of seeded soil littered with pens full of MY trapped sheep, cattle, goats and pigs which means I can pork any female I fancy and destroy any man who thwarts MY desire as simply as the bulls I castrate into submission to easily herd into MY slaughterhouses that feed all the inferior people no longerdependent on their hunting and gathering skills but on ME to stay alive so not only am I not considered a sociopath by hoarding food but am praised at harvest time like a ********* Babe Ruth hero because I have legally claimed and legally ***** those precious few life giving inches of topsoil with rotating crops and extended grasslands that exhausts and shrinks the earth, MY earth MY reign of forcing agricultural workers to bend over in the fields, stupidly exposing hairless backs to sun poisoning instead of their protective hunters’ heads of hair harvesting MY food that shrinks the testicles of everyone who is forced to feed on the cheap calories of MY industrialized plants and animals that lowers fertility, but who needs big ***** anymore when you don’t have to **** larger animals in order to survive or attract females with your superior physical attributes proving I am the social parasite Sultan of Swat who grows fat on the food I’ve seized by stealingPaleo land in the name of government protected ownership.
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 8:43 AM UTC