"composting" poems
you come to me unravelling from hiding spaces in moist wood
composting yourself as nature does
your head hanging low like vines
fluid as the streams running through me.
i: always convinced of my place as low hanging fruit,
see your streams and carry buckets for your leaks.
i am a fixer-upper.
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
The scent of death
lingers for years
in a place
lodges in the soil
rots
and slowly compresses
composting down
deep down
in dirt
earth turns
seasons pass
time and space and silence
until the coiling roots
draw back again
and all that grows
from baby's tears
to blood red poppies
oaks and elms
bear testimony
to the forgotten
dead.
© M.L.Emmett
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
A man once told me earnestly, I was dirt.
And my mind got all unbalanced with distraught.
What’s the worth of dirt?
It was not until lab nine that the comment touched my heart.
“Composting and Soil” hit an emotional spot.
I am dirt. I am the feminine form of Adam, Adamah.
Biblical Hebrew for “Ground” and “earth.”
The chosen medium of the Father’s formation.
Water, Sun and Air
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Entering me daily to heal me, grow me, thrive
the seeds He is planting to reveal His vine.
In a very figurative and literal sense.
Daughter, wife and mother ground
Purposed for ***********
Saturated in Christ, piercing love and bearing children.
Teach the fruit only the Lord develops
Through Christ, soil once unworthy, is valuable
Such as man’s duty is to cultivate the earth
I am dirt, Cultivate me.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 8:52 PM UTC
Years of my tears dry to stale grit
Rusting my skin with crusting corrosions
of Yesterday's emotions frustrations devotions
With time, composting into a dirt coating
Renourishing layers of decomposition
Green seeds in germination with anticipation
Sprouting fresh roots of deeper perception
A Glowing. Growing. Living. New Me.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 8:37 PM UTC
We are rotten now.
You are rotten, moldy, putrid with disease.
I'll separate my pristine state from you.
Get the **** away from me.
You are rotten now.
You are contagiously, disgustingly rotten.
I'll pretend there's still some use in you,
Throw you in the compost, forgotten.
You are a memory.
Overripe, painful, noxious.
You were a part of me.
Infecting, stinking, rancid.
This is my goodbye to you
This is the routine compost.
This is how I say, "We're through,"
This is how I let you go.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
we're all shape shifters.
we
put on weight
and
give off heat.
we
spit on the sidewalk
and
**** up air.
holy ****
do we **** up air.
like they stopped making it,
or something.
and when we sweat
it evaporates into rain.
in the
composting
blast furnace
of our guts
we
reduce and deconstruct.
we
take the good
and
turn the rest into ****
and we apply this same
learned approach
to our fellow
shape shifters.
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2011 at 7:28 PM UTC
For the longest time I was unsure on how to pronounce words
When you weren't the person listening
It’s just we’ve been playing tag longer than the sun has been chasing the moon
Searching the universe for her partner to sooth her to sleep
I’ve been sitting under the grapefruit trees carving our initials into chipped wood
Waiting for your return
Thinking maybe this time
you’ll choose me to swallow up
Instead of composting me
Knowing I’ll bloom for you all over again
I’ve been flopped on my back underneath you
exposing my soft feminine underbelly
For far too long
Pet me and tell me I’m a good girl
Like a dog basking in the sun
Waiting on the porch for you to come home
Howling to the moon
All the lights have gone out
Yet I stayed put for all that time
Regurgitating grapefruit
I embodied that unconditional kind of love
But I don’t love you anymore
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 11:10 PM UTC
I am writing this as
I stand -beer in hand- watching
Neil Gaiman being
Interviewed on stage in
Oslo. He has more to say
Than many, to poets
And those living lives; others.
"Writing is like composting.
You have an idea. You
Leave it to rot... and
Things will grow
From it."
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 1:22 PM UTC
We're blowing leaves,
Vacuuming leaves,
Mowing leaves.
Using technology,
Plugged in or internal,
To clean up the hood.
Then we bag 'em in plastic
For composting,
To be enviro-friendly.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 12:49 PM UTC
Black is the color of the dirt
Black is the color of life
The black soil in our souls
Helping us to grow strong
Composting the dark times
Composting the good times
Taking all of the nutrients
And mixing them together
We couldn't have light
Without dark
Everything has its value
We go through turmoil
We have struggled
Had our turmoil
We have been kicked down
And put down
And yet there is strength
Even in the darkness
Still bringing light
To all who are willing to see
Jun 5, 2012
Jun 5, 2012 at 12:57 AM UTC
Armed guards, perimeter fences,
no this is not a prison camp.
Are you having a good time?
Solar panels, composting toilets, weaving workshops,
sedation, not sedition.
Our partners distracted,
we find freedom.
I was looking for you for ages,
just not where we agreed.
My friends have taken too much.
I can't find my tent.
I don't know what to do.
The trees are so beautiful
when illuminated by lasers.
I am a ball of light, an orb of perception,
intimately mingling with those that didn't pick me up hitchhiking.
But here we are brothers, and sisters,
don't drop your phone.
Mar 12, 2019
Mar 12, 2019 at 10:34 PM UTC
till my aching flesh
break my hardened bones
plough my thirsting roots
prune my reaching arms
‘til all that once
I called my self
falls to the ground, gathered in a heap
—to fuel some future fire;
withers away, composting into the earth
—released to fertilize;
dries up, evaporating into clouds
—set free to fly;
leaks out, running off into ground waters
—flowing to the ocean;
rearrange me ‘til the changes
smudge the image,
blur the reflection,
futilize differentiation
between past and present,
here and there,
this and that,
life and death.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 2:14 AM UTC
Sienna dreams
lay heavy on my flesh
her sheepish tone
that's oh so beautiful
and her steady
steady hand
she's an autumn leaf
composting in the dirt
bringing life
through death
the steady cycle of seasons
will bring only more beauty
for she is sienna
my favorite color
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021 at 2:11 AM UTC
big road sign
pick'em from trees like giants
apple harvest
jack-o-lantern orange pumpkins
sweet fall cider
soft
crisp
crunch
sip
fire engine red
red on green
row upon row
apple pickers pick
fall
composting clay
autumn ambrosia
in a bite
pumpkins overflow
stacked
up
high
red barn store
wood
baskets
barrels
sweet
red paint
*****
snatched from
outstretched
witch's
hands
cajoling
their symmetry
is
like poisonous
snake
venom
pears
vegetables
root beer logs
peppermint pieces
paper sack
homemade
cookies
crumbly donuts
dusted in
snow
brown bag
packed
tight
like children bundled
for snow
piled in car
headed to cradle
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 10:40 AM UTC
The past is the dirt hidden behind the *** walls like it’s not even there.
Roots have been dug dry by clumsy paws before, and a then the grimy, smiling face spoke true and clear,
“You'll only feel comfortable being naked in front of the blind without glasses.”
So please play off the naive smudges resting under my lower eyelashes.
I Lowered my eyelashes.
It’s when it’s seen in the right light angled 30 degrees above the left cheekbone.
It’s when it blisters outside and a mirage sits heavy on the empty road.
It’s when being is to be seen as a composting collection of freckles and scars,
But nothing kills weeds like seeing new flowers and thinking they’re bazaar.
They are Bazaar.
I’ve been used to skinning my knees with smiles to shake off the trauma.
It’s just a hurt, I know that it hurt, so why even bother!
Take it, prune it, and display it in a vase on the windowsill,
But I’ve tried, I’ve failed, and I won’t try again to make roses less hostile.
I Made Roses less hostile.
A dog is a dog and a cat is a cat because a plant is a plant and the sky is the sky.
The way I’ve been told is to radically accept it all to get by,
But it’s when you reach your fingers to the sun through your squint and the heat,
And realizing you’ll only feel as warm as the dirt that’s been curled under your feet.
Growing over your Feet.
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 8:14 PM UTC
Dear You,
I've been here, waiting
for quite an awful long while
my Christmas tree’s a skeleton
my Mistletoe’s missing the toe
my ugly sweater’s an attractive doily
the eggnog’s mould spores unionized
while I’ve been here, waiting for You
I don't care about composting tree,
missing toe, changeling sweater,
or mould spore solidarity
All I care about is You,
who cannot be
bought packaged bagged sold,
I have not one use for gold
trimmings or fancy paper,
I can live without things
baubles toys trinkets rings
All I need
All I want
for Christmas
is You
Truly Yours,
Me
~
Nathan MacKrith
11/28/17
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 10:25 PM UTC
The labyrinthine system of enrouted intrinsics
That behaves as a medium
for any and probably all vegetative states
This present, (assumingly)included
Pulsating root systems
nourished by chaotic, brutal wisdom and love
Dancing in murderous creation
Purity exquisite
Laughing in a deliriatory manner
No laws to uphold
Or silly rituals, pesky square pushers
That’s what we are:
Composing manners to stunt
All that which promotes
Radiant leaves..firm trunk
Composting neuroses
to encroach upon the crops
Nov 17, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 at 7:53 PM UTC