"buoyed" poems
Summer morning -
pink jets of clouds
splash out
from the golden well of the east
falling just short
of an ebbing moon.
Streams of swallows
flutter and glide
over the garden -
they are all flying
in the same direction
as if erupting
from the sun’s waking pulse.
Just for a moment
one of the birds hangs
perfectly still -
like the top-most drop of water
from a fountain before it turns
to face the glittering pool.
Beneath them all
the hummingbird
makes her rounds
and a dove scratches the earth
below the feeder
keeping an wary eye
on the scribbling intruder.
So many summer mornings -
too many summer mornings
I have wasted
worrying about the world
and my place in it –
absent from my own body
and breath
the cage of my ribs
rising, falling, and pausing
without me. Meanwhile,
another swallow
stills her wings.
Buoyed by an unseen breeze
she is both feathered sail
and cresting wave as she slices
over my shoulder bearing west.
Tom Spencer © 2015
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
Goats eat and **** the grass of ramparts,
stupefied cannons sit, garrisoned sentries
primed for nights of buccaneers,
seared by centuries of sun. Down shadowed
cobblestoned ramps, fortified shutters
covet rifle forend and barrel,
wresting rumored slave rebellions
from the locker of history,
while languid waves whisper indifferently
a roll call of human cargo,
chattel displaced, cast to the sea.
Here history sways to sounds
of brown skinned children
at play in breakers,
laughing, shrieking, thrashing,
buoyed by time to this vaulted brick
reverberating chamber,
here a window’s light is cast
beckoning vision past the beach,
to seek the horizon Icarus like,
to fly towards beauty in terror where
an azure sky conjoins a turquoise bay.
Copyright © 2003 Gary Brocks
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 5:14 AM UTC
sad? melancholic? nostalgic?
eyes flit to a distant memory, a
different time ー
nostalgic? melancholic? sad?
where stories weave in and out of
a young mind ー
sad? melancholic? nostalgic?
once weighed down by heavy blocks of unmelted ice ー
nostalgic? melancholic? sad?
but are now buoyed by words, floating up freely to the surface ー
sad? melancholic? nostalgic?
bravery bubbles up on the inside,
shattering the ice coating your tongue ー
nostalgic? melancholic? sad?
the word house finally opens,
but nothing comes out.
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 10:22 AM UTC
ROSE of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;
While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand,
Turn if you may from battles never done,
I call, as they go by me one by one,
Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,
For him who hears love sing and never cease,
Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:
But gather all for whom no love hath made
A woven silence, or but came to cast
A song into the air, and singing passed
To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you
Who have sougft more than is in rain or dew,
Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,
Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips,
And wage God's battles in the long grey ships.
The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
God's bell has claimed them by the little cry
Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
Beauty grown sad with its eternity
Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea.
Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
For God has bid them share an equal fate;
And when at last, defeated in His wars,
They have gone down under the same white stars,
We shall no longer hear the little cry
Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.
5.5k
I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the
foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade
and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low
on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that
may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled,
the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the
meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in
the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the
wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a
Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come
near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the
flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on
the foam of the sea!
4.4k
A Milestone
Should not be a millstone,
Weighting your Spirit.
Rather, a stepping stone
Buoyed in the water of life.
Used to keep you
Above water
As you bridge the gap.
Milestones should not
Be millstones.
Rather, paver stones
Used to mark your path.
Where you've been.
Where you're going.
Forming a pleasing pattern
In the Earth to gaze upon.
To excitedly anticipate.
Milestones should not
Be millstones.
To grind you down
While you continue to grow.
Rather, gem stones
That glitter with the light
Marking the Blessings
Along your path.
Milestones are not millstones.
Unless you see them that way.
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 7:51 PM UTC
Awake to a slowly beating drum
morning meditation drifting up the hill
in the garden, tiny birds add sweet highs
tuneless ravens, the bass undertone
trees whisper ancient lyrics
on the passing breeze.
We stroll the Path of Philosophy
through massive wooden gates
into carefully sculpted gardens
exploring the endless number
of temples dotting Kyoto
each more lovely than the last.
Quiet Nanzen-Ji
is where I feel the most
following worship worn
steps to a cave-shrine
heady with wet
and incense
we are purified
by waterfall spray
before returning
the way we came
voices hushed
buoyed by eternity’s hand.
The hotel lobby is filled
with crimson and saffron
glistening heads and broad smiles
from monks gathered there
we bow to each other and are one
may it never be forgotten
revelers arrive by busload
for hanami, cherry blossom viewing
beneath a revered tree
decked out in pink splendor
lit from below to radiate
surreal, internal light
we sample Kobe yakitori
soba and corn
grilled over open flame
as we flow
through the smiling
celebratory crowd
we savor
what is transitory
as sparks
and blossoms whirl
settling on
our hair and skin.
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 12:15 PM UTC
The dream haunts me
often, far too often, building
in intensity but is initially
disguised in absurdity and the
nonsense of a young man's lusts
with an old man's deficits.
This woman-like entity,
ill-defined at first but forming
voluptuously, emerges from
swelling curtains. She moves, more
levitates, toward my bed, buoyed
by what I don't know, but angelic-like
it would seem. Or perhaps
an Aphrodite reincarnate?
Oh this goddess, what pale
skin, as Parian marble, full bosomed,
jutting ******* ***** that
beckon, nearly drool, and pursed
red lips beaded with sweet
juice stolen from the wild cherry
tree beneath my window.
Far too much clarity for a simple
dream. But such a dream! And what
seething testosterone I feel!
I am become a hedonist, raging,
pulsing spermatozoa, renewed
of time and youthful energies.
Nerve into nerve we join, ecstacy
compounding ecstacy, bodies wantonly
impaling the other on this love bed
to the result that each cell of our
individualities melds. We are indistinct,
yes - as one, and any ****** impulse
between us is shared to the point of
utter exhaustion, depletion. I am
nearly drained of life, it would seem.
Then, as it always must,
the scene changes, Act II.
Inexplicably, shedding a ******
serpentine-like skin, she slings it away
and drops limply upon me - entirely
skeletal, dry cartilage, sinew, lifeless,
sexless, motionless. The horror
of a diabolical hollowness
stares through me, and I am
suspended, fully terrorized, in
this paralysis. So, this is
succumbing to the Succubus?
God, my dear God, that I should
never dream again!
--
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM UTC
Night comes
r
o l l i
n g
down again
in painted coats
of thick onyx
clouding my vision
as if a brightly-striped
cuttlefish,
sister of squid
has enveloped me
in its
dark liquid
sea ink
an opaque vapor
for protection,
a shimmering
sheild against
disillusionment
pain of potential
loss
endless strands
of longing
knotting in my
hair like kelp
keeping me rooted
to the sea floor,
feet ensconced in
the soft squish
of muck and earth
Miraculously,
I breathe,
as if a sea nympth,
a mermaid
holding on to
the silvery scales
of her reality
indigo-dipped
in deepest iridescence
blending with fronds
of vibrant greens
and I am floating
within a vast membrane
of brine
somehow nuturing,
liquid cushion
of womb-water
letting it slake
the piquancy of thirst
that bursts my tongue
into succulence
Spiked in sea stars
like thorny crowns,
I reach out to
discover new textures
puncture the dark
with my fingers
enfold those waters
to me,
letting them
rock the soul
of my soul
the heart
of the seed
of my heart
and allow my
sonar, as powerful
as a whale's
encompassing call
to surge up
through nautical miles
of ocean depths,
buoyed through layers
of waves
up unto
the winds
that ride,
ever-tenderly,
the surface
of
the
dawn
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 3:21 PM UTC
My community is like a day at the beach.
The warm water melts away the ****** seagull calls
As we build sandcastles large enough for the biggest
And most ridiculously hard to say umbrella that we can
Manage to stitch together from our broken homes.
We play volleyball with our hope
The biggest beach ball we can muster
Our net constructed of ally weave
And it’s got flames and it’s super bad-ass and ****
But nets are only nets
And nets can only do so much
You can’t play games without
The people.
We ride jet skis away from sharks
Sharing the strong towers
Of our middle fingers
Because **** sharks
I know only some of them are dangerous
But after you see a body floating in the water
Like a buoyed tomb
It’s hard to forget the biting.
The net asked us once
Why we never have a funeral
I guessed that it didn’t realize that
We don’t have the time
To bury all the bodies
That’s like
Asking us to count the sand
Like telling us to collect the waves
Like begging us to dry an ocean of tears
But
These aren’t tears
They are a body count
These aren’t sickles of sand
They are our ancestors’ ashes
These aren’t warm waves
but walls of black blood
And it’s here
Amongst the ashes
And blood
That we build our sandcastles
I look around in mine
It is insulated in white
The black blood
Only begins to broach
The moat outside
If I never bothered
To look
I might never see it
How much time
Must we spend in
Our sandcastles
Before we can
Smell the blood
Outside
How deep do we
Have to dig our holes
Before we silence the screams
Outside
Why are we just
Looking at the walls
Why aren’t we looking
Outside
We are not royalty
We are not arbiters of
Ash and blood
This is NOT a
Game
Net’s don’t matter when
All the players are dying.
How many sandcastles
Do we have to build
Before we remember
The stone riots that
Built them
Be spiked heel shoes
Be rock and brick
Be broken windows
Be shattered bone
Raise your fist against
The biting tide
Swim against the sharks
Until you bleed enough
To drown
Them
Be blood
Be ash
Be broken homes
Be ****** murals
In the street
Be white sandcastles
Then tear yourself down
Until you get back to the
Stone Walls of your foundation
You know what, ever mind
**** sandcastles
They seem too much like sharks
anyway
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 8:18 PM UTC
It's a small bed we share
barely enough for the two
but big enough for the pair
to see the years sail through.
The wood now creaks with age
shrunk thin the old mattress
weighed down with passing days
buoyed up with embrace.
The pillows are thick with stains
of tears that flowed all the while
from rivers of joys shared pains
upon travel of the long trying miles.
Loyally it carries us along
our bed of priceless worth
could mere wood be that strong
if not bonded with warmth!
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 9:52 PM UTC
shrug off the shoulder aches
as laughter bounces off the walls.
shimmy out of the daily traffic
and into the well-lit streets.
clink glasses to accompany a song
in which everyone shouts the words.
when it's over, float atop the world
with hearts buoyed by love.
Apr 27, 2022
Apr 27, 2022 at 12:23 AM UTC
The third power of the Sphinx
is Courage.
"Herein lies the great mystery of the empty throne." ∆
Giddy in the throes of realization,
the Arbiter, imbued with needful action,
takes a great, daring leap across the chasm
into the implications of knowledge:
This is It - the Puzzle that Fascinates Itself.
"You awoke in the Kingdom with eyes closed. In the beginning was the Trapezoid called Control." ∆
Borne by an umbilical Breath
to a lens too small to see Itself,
Buoyed by the lapping waves,
Reason wrought a waking sleep
of hallucinations, a sea of dreams
and possibilities to become;
Memories too large
to conceive by aught
but the perennial story
that swallows the narrator:
*"I see their entire lives in an instant,
being devoured and loving and living
in a world that does not realize
it is already over."* ‡
Courage is the Bearer of Truth.
Headlong into the open maw
heaves the gleeful Fool
and his glad Word.
*"The excess of Meaning must be wrought on the Page,
on worlds of our own imagining." ∞*
To Dare is to risk:
consequence the reward
fraught with baited hooks
to tether the Arbiter to Time.
The web of attachment
sprawls, an expansive net.
*"The web is infinite -
those caught in it are beyond Number."* †
Yet the spider is never
ensnared by its Art:
a master of the net,
a climber of the Tree.
At the summit of its dizzying heights,
the depth of the Fall overwhelms.
Responsibility follows.
"Thou art That which resolves the frustum." ∆
Escaper of the Labyrinth,
Master of the Maze,
no longer merely Thou:
Dilation devours the Iris.
*"What speaks through You has Ordained it
from the Beginning of Time,
and only in harnessing it
will you learn to devour your self
totally."* †
*"Then will you know me
as the eye that never shuts,
the eye that blinds."* Ω
The way
(out)
is through.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 7:02 PM UTC
AN OVI/VICTORIA'S POEM
COLLABORATION
What brings an undaunted Warrior down on his knees?"
**It is a Woman,
A woman's tears can pierce into the most rigid of souls.
It is her charms and calls
that falls like splendors on morning leaves.
Her sway and bounce, that sends shivers into the hearts.**
*Such are the nights
she envelopes him in a tailwind,
both of them buoyed
in his regard
of her every thing.
Quenched and drunk
on the essence
of love in action
happen the mornings when he
is the rising sun itself
that draws her
like a mist from the ocean.*
**And as the moon transverses the lone sky, searching for a mystery to peruse the earth with brooding glow,
So she glows her man into a brighter him.
She encloses within her, moments of illumination, that even the darkest of souls cannot quench.
Such are the days of her unending rainfalls, where she wets up the shallowest of earth's depths....
Intertwining between seasons and spheres.
Her heart is like the endlessness of the ocean,
Constantly drawing him with her hips into a wave of boundless journey.**
*And so it is
as it always was
through the ages of transience,
their enigma constant,
unending prevailed
against the steely, storming skies
of angst en masse
that would test loves mettle,
where true warriors, undaunted
rise above, arced
in kaleidoscopic triumph.*
**Ovi Odiete and Victoria©
All right reserved. 10/9/2016**
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 6:20 AM UTC
Once in the wind of morning
I ranged the thymy wold;
The world-wide air was azure
And all the brooks ran gold.
There through the dews beside me
Behold a youth that trod,
With feathered cap on forehead,
And poised a golden rod.
With mien to match the morning
And gay delightful guise
And friendly brows and laughter
He looked me in the eyes.
Oh whence, I asked, and whither?
He smiled and would not say,
And looked at me and beckoned
And laughed and led the way.
And with kind looks and laughter
And nought to say beside
We two went on together,
I and my happy guide.
Across the glittering pastures
And empty upland still
And solitude of shepherds
High in the folded hill,
By hanging woods and hamlets
That gaze through orchards down
On many a windmill turning
And far-discovered town,
With gay regards of promise
And sure unslackened stride
And smiles and nothing spoken
Led on my merry guide.
By blowing realms of woodland
With sunstruck vanes afield
And cloud-led shadows sailing
About the windy weald,
By valley-guarded granges
And silver waters wide,
Content at heart I followed
With my delightful guide.
And like the cloudy shadows
Across the country blown
We two fare on for ever,
But not we two alone.
With the great gale we journey
That breathes from gardens thinned,
Borne in the drift of blossoms
Whose petals throng the wind;
Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper
Of dancing leaflets whirled
>From all the woods that autumn
Bereaves in all the world.
And midst the fluttering legion
Of all that ever died
I follow, and before us
Goes the delightful guide,
With lips that brim with laughter
But never once respond,
And feet that fly on feathers,
And serpent-circled wand.
1.6k
But it's as if you’re ****** into the page on which you sit so precariously. You realize his eyes have become weird again, throbbing to the beat of your love. He looks away, leaning back on his hands, arms taught. And you sit as if alone, watching him tear a piece off your history and craft a paper airplane from your devotion, fingers gently folding and creasing, lovingly shaping, his head turning, focusing, admiring. And when he is satisfied, he throws it with a flick of his pale wrist. It sails beautifully through the air, buoyed by affection and adoration, leaping through the gusts with pride. You reach out a hand willing it to come to you, wanting something so tender for yourself, for your gasping heart. But as you lean in, poised with glory, a thief melts from a burning tree, morphs from the shadows, an ugly, beaten creature, scaly and peeling. It slinks foreword catching the plane in its mottled claws, pinching it slightly as your lover lets out a small gasp, eyes widening. The creature places it inside the steel bars over its heart and suddenly the thing changes and becomes lovely, blooming and whole, an infection of grace and slender frame. Fragrance floats back to you as you cower and your lover looks at the lovely figure descending upon him and you scream and scream, seizing and foaming, something mad, unwanted, hidden from sight. But he is no more than smoke; naked body drooling, jagged blades protruding from his back; and where his heart should have been, there are only iron bars. He turns and howls, an alien sound, unreal, lips curling back, twisting and forcing his screeching notes into your chest smothering your mind. But finally you have had enough; finally you understand, finally you find strength to pull apart the stitching and release yourself and you fall.
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 2:34 AM UTC
The soul never speaks
Conveys much sans words
Many things run though
Leaving a trail of feelings
Take a plunge within
Swim with the flow
Towards the confluence
Buoyed feeling keeps you afloat
You are the lotus, about to bloom
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 12:50 AM UTC
In her veins is the blood of
Choctaw Welsh Minoan
Flowing like the Warrior River-
Tributaries to rivulets-
(to terror for fleeing silt, at the same)
Secrets flow there as well.
The Waters Women are buoyed upon this simple fact
But in winter there comes an occasional freeze and the river goes silent,
the blood slows in the turtles nesting beside the Warrior, too cold to shift beak or claw and the Waters women will speak of other things buried deep beneath the Warrior, beneath pride and circumstance.
The Gulf clams lick the ocean floor
Blind but for taste - how can they know the tongue from the beak?
It's a mystery to me how they survive at all,
In the Gulf ocean
In the Warrior
In the Waters who live at the edge of Waterfalls, at the Warriors weeping banks, where the snow has all gone.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 3:27 PM UTC
this is the dwelling where wind is a bell and a beacon for death.
where youthful pursuit is punctured by family names or famine of fortune.
boys in bands buoyed by Onos and shared women.
lawyer fathers and social ***** mothers whose children are forbidden to **** up.
one street reserved and smothered by talking townsmen
whose belligerent brides keep tabs on their fellow middle-aged malicious
minded low-lifes
engorged in gossip are the parading fat men who rise early to feed off ones business capital tragedies
****** shortcomings of the stuck and single prey off tweens tweeting of body glitter and b-cups.
clique chick coquettes play house with their shiny image seeking male counterparts
who sing songs of their leather faced lady friends with plastic claws they now admit they would never marry
antagonizing cute couples secretly copulating with former loves' lust
only to mingle with conspirators molding to dominant thought
once a waitress always a waitress
with overdrawn bragging rights and unemployment checks
serving snobs like themselves who sip savignon
self-righteous polo popping perverts accompanying their prized play things
who join the charles river emigrants and stale french pastries
scouting the waste colored palace of prejudice.
now blades of winter draw months of blue blood
bringing forth frozen thoughts slowly dripping onto thawing skin.
another warm summer sun forthcoming
foreshadowed by this wind-chafing forlornness.
though i will fall in love again
and bridge rats will always be kings.
Apr 21, 2011
Apr 21, 2011 at 3:33 PM UTC
I am left in the forrest to die, a battered runaway slave, until a swamp mambo saves my life with some herbs and love over time, but I cannot let go of the fact she brought me back from the precipice of death, so for the rest of her breath I serve and protect her with honor and respect.
I am an ancient Chinese nobleman betrothed to a bride for more money and land, except I'd rather spend the time with a common woman because she makes me feel and opens me up, but in the end I choose the power, and to my horror the bride has the woman's family removed from life.
I am a suave satyr, a boisterous and joyous half-goat who prefers the light of night, a rapscallion nymph chaser whose frenzied bacchanalia rife with wild ****** an ecstatic ******* even though a had a penchant for this shapeshifter whose eyes lifted me beyond an echo in time.
As an oracle, I am only beholden to the gods though I don't think the Kings and Queens understand my sister and me. Our feminine bodies flicker and dance in shadows, embers aglow as we flow between each other's souls and worlds to bring words of wisdom through smoke visions and hieroglyphic poems.
I am a Viking, tired and hurt, our ship burns as my ****** body is momentarily buoyed in the frigid watery deep, proud yet ready to sleep until I realize this is my final battle yet won't reach Valhalla as I drown, the freezing drink slowly chokes my veins, the sound fades.
I feel free, a wild dakini gypsy between dimensions and time, with my sisterly crew of hypnotizing pirates making no bones what we want from the clients as our razor sharp bodies and piercing eyes cut through souls so we may outshine each other in stories and diamonds.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 7:37 PM UTC
*A soul suspended in an intricate matrix
Of unprecedented circumstance
Buoyed by a feeling of immense ecstasy
And a cocktail of other mixed emotions
Experiences the gripping embrace
Of nostalgia.
Scenes regurgitated from the remotest part of
The brain get intertwined with a beleaguered consciousness
Relish and distaste merged into one
Them memories…emotional souvenirs of a tumultuous past
Recollection of the past is indeed bittersweet
After all isn’t it
A frantic chase after the wind
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 10:40 AM UTC
In the end
Holding on to hope
Was worse
Than releasing her despair.
It was an ionized illusion
*St. Elmos' blaze
Without the burn.*
- But still
She held her hands out
Towards this flame
And even as they froze
She kept her eye on the fire
Transfixed
By the etheric images
That leapt from the embers.
Had she pounded
The subfusc earth
To rail against her lot
And slapped the salty rills
From her cheeks
She might have lived.
But she stood still
Too buoyed by hope
To notice
That the flame was cold
And icing her bones.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 11:29 AM UTC
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."
I felt his coarse hands grip mine, too;
I lived through Mr. Hooper vicariously
as I looked down at open palms
spread to the heavens,
illuminated in the flashy brilliance of the glare.
I saw wrinkled, calloused eyes peer into mine;
I stood on that rickety old dock
in my fitted and worn wool cap,
faded denim shirt matching pants
and dingy white tennis shoes.
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."
My ego crestfallen as well,
pride in my intelligence proven in the Academia
withering, as the gritty gap-toothed
leery-eyed barnacle of a sailor
peered inquisitively into my soul.
He saw the smooth hands--
ah, but the callouses engraved deep between joints
on my fingers; a musician!
His eyes grilled, "In bourgeois leisure,
smiling meekly dwelling within milquetoast afternoon hours,
or,
from downtown haunts sweating jazz in the midnight hour,
dancing screaming cursing moaning lovingly?"
My eyes cast down again.
But I know not of the city as my abode!
I know the ****** and the farmer
more than any contributor to painted landscapes, nay;
they are my acquaintances, neighbors, cousins, brothers, and sisters!
For I have lived on the water;
I have eyed the vessels
commandeered by the gritty, grubby,
greased captains of my soul,
as I float buoyed in their wake,
eager to catch a semblance of the waters
that trail before them.
I live treading their wake,
eyes open and pencil in hand.
And lo;
I found sanctuary in the vast fields of the rustic farmer!
For I ate breakfast of the freshly-slaughtered calf;
I drank its mother's milk,
eggs fresh from the poultry den--
I squawked along with the mother hens.
I took in the bucolic smell of the country
atop the rugged tractor,
eyeing squinting
grimacing like a smile in the sun
burning burning down upon stiff backs
and leather necks--
I, the leaves of grass scattered
in the wake of the farmer,
I, the bails of hay furled tightly
sitting patiently in the once golden meadow,
I watched the tractors and their commandeers
disappear in the bombinate horizon;
the sound of insects ushering in the night sky
like unrolling the starry-eyed carpet
before the hazy late afternoon moon.
I watched, I lived,
waiting coiled in their wakes
eyes wide open and paper clenched in hand.
I lifted my eyes to once again
hear his curt admonition:
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Rhine."
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:37 PM UTC