"bushel" poems
I moved a few years ago
To the upper state of Vermont
Although the place is beautiful
At times it can be one great big yawn
That's when we put our heads together
Me and my best friend Shawn
And came up with the great idea
To start a Hippie Farm
Our noggins were a knocking
Not sure how this could be done
Do Hippies come from packs of seeds
Or like flowers, in a bunch
And can you start them off by grafting
Like they do on Apple Farms
Where you get rows and rows of Hippies
From just a single one
That's when Shawn remembered this mail order magazine
That we took out and took a look inside
It came with an assortment of Hippies
From Raw to Roasted to Highly Deep Fried
So we sat and weighed all of our options
And ordered a bushel of Hippies alive
Then we set out cultivating the fields
Till the day our Hippies arrived
The package arrived a few days later
In an old beat up VW Bus
With psychedelic smoke pouring from the windows
Pretty sure they all came buzzed
Of course Hippies don't come with instructions
Only bell bottom jeans and old Jefferson Airplane tapes
Can't tell you how many Hippies we went through
Before we learned from our mistakes
Like don't plant a Hippie face first in the dirt
They need a bit of air to breath
And they don't like to be over watered
Just dust them off when you feel the need
Now that the farm is up and running
We seem to have come into our own
We've even come up with a way of branding
Some of the Hippies that we've grown
We started selling them in flavors
Like Ben and Jerry's down the street
From our Abbie Hoffman Radical Cherry
To our Hendrix Hazy Purple Berry Treat
But it's our Groovy Rainbow Roundup Hippie
Whose sales have never let us down
In fact I'd put that Hippie up against
Anybody else's Hippie in town
I've never been much of one to brag
But we're known on the East coast, up and down
We've had people as far away as Florida
Come and buy our Hippies by the pound
So next time your up in Vermont
Stop in and take a tour and watch us grow
Don't forget to stop by our gift shop
And purchase your very own Hippie to take home
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
BURY this old Illinois farmer with respect.
He slept the Illinois nights of his life after days of work in Illinois cornfields.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the cornsilk and the tassels, the wind that combed his red beard zero mornings when the snow lay white on the yellow ears in the bushel basket at the corncrib,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where his hands must dream of Illinois corn.
6.8k
The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man, — present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state, these functions are parcelled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies, that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers. But unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.
Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
Olwen grew after mid-winter's passing
the wind had sung her a child's name
she knew her time was now come
the man she picked was strong and wise
and she had seen his death was anigh
the great gift she would give him
a girl child she would carry, birth and teach
her first word would be the name of him
who was to fall in the cattle raid to Seisysllwg
no man to own her or claim her
Olwen mothered
a world of dreams
a world of knowing
she knew the seasons
and the schemes
of life growing
hares and foxes
would sleeep at her feet
enemies before her
would not fight but retreat
Olwen's way was of care and of love
her power of the earth and skies above
no denizens of dark and deepest hate
would stand her eyes that saw their fate
fast eye
clear sky
brown flash
passes by
beast or bird
we cannot see
good Olwen
watching over thee
The child came in the autumn months
gold- clad meadows bear the last of mother's bounty
as she came into the world scythes cut the last bushel
weak with the birth she carried the child
to the stone on plynlimon's east side
"let the source of the five feel the spirit of this child
carry her through her life with power and love..."
When Cariad was five she took her to the great marsh south of the Dyfi
and watched as the child threw her father's sword back to his spirit
further than any man could throw
ask not for power
for your arm
ask for strength
in your heart
ask not for dominion
over men
seek love
for the world
ask not for thyself
anything you
would not give
away freely
no shadows came to dwell in the hills and vales
where peace eternal dwelt with power of hearts
Olwen slept after one mid-winter's passing
She died when the spirits asked for her
Cariad bore her to the Plynlimon stone
where all wise women's bones will lie
The rivers remember her eyes
The trees remember her wisdom
The birds remember her song
The stars remember Her dreams
The Stones of Deheubarth
remember their Wise-Woman
when Moon and Sun rise
and the shadows flee
Feb 20, 2011
Feb 20, 2011 at 9:10 AM UTC
I like apples
I like oranges
Apples are sweet with a crunch
Even when they are ****
The rewards are great
They are filled with nutrition
The skin is even good for the teeth
But every once in awhile
One is spoiled or rotten
Or worse, filled with creepy crawlers
Yet the refreshing burst
Of beneficial flavor is hard to refuse
I love oranges, the color alone
Sunshine in my hand
Puts a smile on my face
Before I even take a bite
When they are sweet
Nothing cold be better
They make my life healthy and happy
However, they, occasionally, can be bitter
Or spoiled or not glow so bright
Yet even at their most sour times
Or when they are not the freshest
I love them more than life itself
So it's obvious to me
Given the choice between the two
It is no contest
My love for oranges is rare
Yet I've been granted a special opportunity
I have been offered a bushel of apples
Though they are tasty
I don't want to only eat them
Apples or oranges?
I can eat the apples and still enjoy
The flavor burst of the oranges
The apples may even help me to
Enjoy the oranges even more
And cherish the time I have to
Nourish my bobby and mind
With their sweet nectar
I like apples
I love oranges
I can enjoy both
Without letting any spoil
With the right proportions
I just won't try to
Eat cake too!
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 7:33 PM UTC
Someone started to call me
Different,
Caught themselves,
"You're unique."
Ma'am, with all the respect in the world,
Everyone's unique,
But not everyone's different.
Because unique
Means that you're you.
Which isn't bad.
Different means
That not only are you you,
You're the hero in your story,
You've climbed mountains,
Sailed seas,
Saw a million sights unseen,
And dream in colors
No one else has thought to create.
Unique means that you're
Different from other people,
But to the same level they are.
Different means that you
Broke every mold,
Nothing about you is reminiscent
Of someone else.
I am my own person.
I have my own life.
I dance to my own beat.
I color outside the lines.
Don't try to be polite
And label me unique,
You won't hurt my feelings
By saying I'm different,
In fact,
You might make my day.
So unique is good,
Different is good,
But remember,
I'm different,
And that's not bad,
In fact,
I rather like it.
So don't think of different as bad,
Think of a green apple
In a bushel of red apples,
Think of the first autumn leaf,
And then,
Think of me.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 5:27 PM UTC
Imagine a warehouse of apples with their individual conciousness.
They are labelled and categorised.
They are segregated.
The apples are gathered and put into boxes marked
by what they want to be known by,
their commonality/mentality.
If a bushel of apples are a stigma, they are put into boxes marked by what the other apples tag them by.
In a self-marked box, by the name of “surat zayifa” an apple lays at the juncture of the pyramid of analogous red,
maggots eating away at it’s heart.
The apple turned crimson hued to an evangelist blood maroon. Smouldering; festering like an open wound.
A stinging aura besieged it,
suffocating the air like sharpnel stuck in the throat.
The apple, consumed by a dark resurgence and a devilish resolve,
spoke in tongues of the serpent and supplanted seeds of pestilence in the hearts of the apples who joined his brooding virtue.
A collective conciousness was supplanted among the fruit,
imprinted with the face of death.
The world of apples, thrive on each other and face the forebodings of life together in spite of their marked differences in a state of throbbing dependancy.
The apples feed on the apples.
Another self-marked box, by the name of “khalas” were set to consume the apples from “surat zayifa” to continue finity,
unwary of their poisoned souls.
The apples fed on the apples and almost every other apple rotted and perished.
The apples that survived were the ones who consumed the apples unblemished in spirit.
All the others apples from all the other boxes blamed “surat zayifa” as a whole.
Even the apples purest, were tainted by the sins of the other apples,
the ones to take the blame for the misdeed of their creed.
The box was now marked in disgrace, a vehemence, a scourge.
The last remaining poisoned apple that was set to perish from “khalas” did something morally unhinging before it’s spirit departed;
the apple smeared it’s tan blood with words on the cardboard and dropped dead.
The singular light bulb flickered, the pulse strained.
Everything fell silent.
The words read “ We are ourselves. We **** ourselves.”
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 1:17 AM UTC
it is the light of candles in the window
the vaporous dawn
glowing
and not yet the sun
it is
the skin of shadow
wavering in teacups in india
the 'Bushel-of-Rice' king
smiling
at two suns.
it is the secret
of doors that have no other side
and the mystery of
rooms that lead
to them.
it is
a small thing
more vast
than
why ?
and the
need of
.
Sep 27, 2011
Sep 27, 2011 at 5:36 PM UTC
His nose was Cairo’s Bent Pyramid or a pair of ergonomic pliers
And his loyalty was a slumped tower of Jenga pieces
And his skin was a film of thick oatmeal or cream of mushroom soup, coating the bottom of an untouched ***
His teeth, little tombstones sinking into the earth.
His logic was a pair of safety scissors chewing through corrugated fiberboard
And his insults were sharp staccatos
And his humor was a steeped tea bag or curdled milk
And his laughter was a Singer sewing machine choking on tangled thread.
His eyebrows were gargoyle wings
And his hair, a bushel of dry bear grass
He sang, and it was cough syrup
And his beard was a soiled litter box.
His fingers, dried seaweed
And the palms of his hands were month old dish sponges.
His spine was a curved dipper gourd rotting in the sun
His grin was a snagged zipper
And his temperament pad-less brakes or a wasp in September
And his kisses were apple cider vinegar and radishes
And his eyes were two bottomless stone wells, foaming with moss.
His gait was a vulture scrutinizing its prey.
His chest was the backside of a dung beetle.
His insight was a cataract ridden car headlight lost in a curtain of fog
And his knees were skulls
And his touch was a snug pressure cuff
And his compassion was a guillotine
And the last time we spoke, it was crucifixion.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 9:09 PM UTC
I found your lamp
beneath a bushel
and rubbed it
til A Genie
Appeared
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
SPEAK, sir, and be wise.
Speak choosing your words, sir, like an old woman over a bushel of apples.
1.6k
Before Old Charon
I now stand
A bushel of berries
for this ferryman
The guardsman of fate
expresses his guilt
For the broken promises
he has spilt
forget the italics
of my brash remark
ford the wide styx
sings the deathly lark
a limerick of longing
hollows my mind
the verbal flogging
hardens my heart from the kind
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
Royal Road slopes
enough so that your toes know
which way you are going.
Kudzu and ragweed accent the driveway
pitted with bushel basket size
holes amid roaming plastic grocery bags.
A 1960’s version mobile home
fights Mimosa and blackberry bush
to remain visible.
As I ascend the creaking steps
a neighbor cracks the quiet
to announce that, “Jesse is on the way.”
I hear the clop, swish, clop
as Jesse corners onto Royal Road
and chugs toward me.
Sweat rivers from his beard.
He greets me with,
“Thanks for the groceries.”
I said, "I need you to sign
to show I brought food."
I didn’t ask, “How did you lose your leg?”
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 9:58 AM UTC
Somewhere way down a long line of cars and roads on the opposite end of broken down gas station near a bedside tavern.
You were lost near a bushel of birds.
That chirped when you walked by.
And there was a cloud directly above you,
white.
Puffy.
Lost in the blue blue sky.
Only it wasn't.
It was shading you from the sun.
And you walked under an oak tree with a knothole in it.
Whispered your dreams in to it's trunk and walked away.
An apple fell from an oak tree.
Somewhere along the way you stumbled over the curb and forgave it for bloodying your elbow. The sunlight kissed your skin and suddenly there was nothing.
Like superman,
the sun made you strong.
And the radiance of yourself by the river as the logs drifted on.
Moon sparkle and bathe.
There was purity.
There were answers.
So said the squirrels as they squeaked about you in the branches.
I had another cigarette and forgot all about it.
-P.S.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 10:50 AM UTC
HOW much do you love me, a million bushels?
Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.
And to-morrow maybe only half a bushel?
To-morrow maybe not even a half a bushel.
And is this your heart arithmetic?
This is the way the wind measures the weather.
1.4k
I like goats
a bushel and a peck
a bushel and a peck
with a bell (or a kiss) on the neck
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 7:59 PM UTC
beware of those clone accounts
they're multiply in great amounts
as bacteria making its separation
inside a medical laboratory's location
one becoming two
two becoming four
four becoming eight
eight becoming sixteen
as you will so plainly see
from the above calculation
they're an ever increasing
population
at some internet sites
these clones are reproducing
with an alarming speed
they're coming into existence
like a full bushel bag
of sorghum seed
Aug 25, 2016
Aug 25, 2016 at 7:22 PM UTC
brewing potion with ritual
reciting chants, merely verbal
niching these little caviar
a mixture of gravitas and war
such ladle so long enough to combine
a virgin's blood with a spoon of wine
perhaps adding a buckskin would suffice
this hellcat's hellacious bliss
a bushel of a misogynist's intestine,
must not forget to hitch gobs of sharks fin,
augment a pair of an old man's sight
then smatter the hogs' teeth bite
sing song this dark lullaby
you ought to hear plead and cry
smell and smear this fatal brew
any life it shall take and shoo
death will come and it will reign
blood will begrime and it will stain
thoroughly toting the daring deathly hex
seeking a prey who must be next
Nov 25, 2019
Nov 25, 2019 at 10:52 PM UTC
When these summer squalls have subsided,
I will reap the kernels of my discontent.
bushel by bushel,
I will harvest my wistful fields
until they are barren of want, and come fall,
I will take my troubles to the mill.
lined-up and counted,
I will bake them in the sun,
and when they are dry,
I will grind them with a stone salvation.
under a December sky,
I will bleach them with a mild amnesia
so they are as white and soft as springtime snow.
Then, baker befriended these kneaded woes will rise--and this time,
I will feast on the bread of my shortcomings.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 5:31 PM UTC
*Dearest Therapist:
There is nothing wrong with me. I don’t see what you see. I feel fine today… it must have been a dream. I don’t know why I ever told you anything at all. I have no problems, there’s nothing wrong with me. How could there possibly be? I am the perfect girl. Things like that don’t happen to girls like me. I have the perfect life, with the perfect kids, the perfect friends, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect smile. There is no way I could have ever suffered something like that. I am not pathetic and sorry. Girls like me don’t have problems. Girls like me don’t feel pain. Girls like me have everything anyone could possibly wish for, and then some. There is nothing I cannot achieve. I am so sorry for wasting your time.*
WHAT ACHES TO BE SAID BUT WILL REMAIN HIDDEN BEHIND THE SMILE:
I am not that perfect girl. My heart and soul have third degree burns that cannot be repaired. It hurts so much inside that at times it is unbearable and I cannot remain here, housed in this body. I hide behind a smile because all I have left is a small amount of pride and a whole bushel of stubborn will. My life is one big lie. No one will see me with my head in the toilet or the scars on my arms that were once covered with blood. No one will ever know that the perfect girl is not real. The reality of it all is way too difficult to divulge and much less complicated to conceal. Tonight I cry alone but when tomorrow comes I will once again live that ‘perfect life’… the life of no pain, the life of no shame, and the life with no fear. And you will never know that when the darkness falls, and I am once again alone, I will feel the pain I push away all day long. And I will lock myself in the bathroom and I will sob on the cold tile floor. But I will do it in the silence of my bathroom, alone, in the darkness.
You will never know….because I will not speak...I am not allowed to speak.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 10:36 PM UTC
deep within the black shirt
are chamelion hands making mocks
of string
when they should've been
digit deep in a bowling ball
or around the handle of a sauce pan
or on the arm of the couch...
sometimes they'd be cupped
amplifying yells around the mouth,
sourcing the tooth obsession along with a slew of other medical problems,
another bushel of ******** for the stew in the ***
maybe her foreign claws
could rub the knots out of your shoulders
but she is suspected of dropping the world,
and, as with many other things,
would garner your reluctance
to hold risk for,
your red hot fear of hatred
your red hot ******* hatred
those shoulders hold your house
your saxophone
those shoulders hold your experience
your lack thereof, your anxiety
your ******* hatred
your black shirt
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC