"cornfield" poems
“only” the lonely know (my special sign)
{=}
an incurable silence
the meaningless, wasted touch of a hand,
attached, directed by them from them
to them
a failed reassurance
a classroom, a stadium, cornfield or grove,
so many nutted fallen solitaries fallen to rot
midst a globe of trillions never noticed,
never missed
the silly conceptual that the lonely,
special unique, blessed with a curse,
a specialist status, “only” they afflicted;
with a ken that isolates and yet feels elevated -
oh! I am special
show me one, just one, human who doesn’t truly believe,
they are the onliest loneliest and you will vision
each and every
lonely person who
secret sighs and whose first thoughts are only:
god spare me one more day of being,
fearful of achieving
my very own knowing,
in the invisible place,
the incurable silence award,
reward of another purple heart,
“only” the lonely service ribbon,
my Cain marker
~my special sign~
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
"And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."
The earth was green, the sky was blue:
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;
A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared
And silent sank, and soared to sing.
The cornfield stretched a tender green
To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks:
And as I paused to hear his song
While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
And listened longer than I did.
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YOUR bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper,
Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers,
The dome and the wings of you, ******
The red roof and the door of you,
I know where your songs came from.
I know why God listens to your, "Walk All Over God's Heaven."
I heard you shooting craps, "My baby's going to have a new dress."
I heard you in the cinders, "I'm going to live anyhow until I die."
I saw five of you with a can of beer on a summer night and I listened to the five of you
harmonizing six ways to sing, "Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield."
I went away asking where I come from.
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BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.
Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the cornet staccato and the tuba oompa, gigglers, God knows, gigglers daffy with life's razzle dazzle.
Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor-a giggler, God knows, a giggler-and the summer-white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.
The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the story.
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Romeo, gosh, I'm sorry how things turned out,
and sorry I didn't die after all like you thought.
I'm old now, you wouldn't look twice at me
but I miss you still, even so, most definitely.
You could find me tonight across from a cornfield
working the St. Lucy's Fall Festival and how would you feel
about that, babe? I wear a lumpy old overcoat
and sell tickets to teenagers so in love they almost float.
I get feeling sentimental and sad about everything
remembering how you said you were the All-Powerful Weather King
and could make the sun come out if I wished it,
or kiss me and kiss me again if I told you I missed it.
My goodness, Romeo, you don't know how often I still think of you,
like when I saw some crestfallen kid with wild hair walking through
the festival like he had something on his mind
and he seemed lonesome, like you, and quiet and kind.
It's almost midnight and the lights are going dim
so I've got to pack up and go home alone again.
I wish so hard that things had turned out different
and I'd say, "Romeo, oh Romeo," and you'd know what I meant.
Sep 17, 2025
Sep 17, 2025 at 5:29 PM UTC
(Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.
I was a plaything, a rat's neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff.
Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon.
Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky,
A night harbor, blue dusk mountain shoulders against a night sky,
And a circle of lights blinking: Ninety thousand people here.
Among the Wednesday night thousands in goloshes and coats slickered for rain,
I learned how hungry I was for streets and people.
I would rather be water than anything else.
I saw a drive of salt fog and mist in the North Atlantic and an iceberg dusky as a cloud in the gray of morning.
And I saw the dream pools of fjords in Norway ... and the scarf of dancing water on the rocks and over the edges of mountain shelves.
Bury me in a mountain graveyard in Norway.
Three tongues of water sing around it with snow from the mountains.
Bury me in the North Atlantic.
A fog there from Iceland will be a murmur in gray over me and a long deep wind sob always.
Bury me in an Illinois cornfield.
The blizzards loosen their pipe ***** voluntaries in winter stubble and the spring rains and the fall rains bring letters from the sea.
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The two of us staring
At the stars in the sky
Making wishes on comets
And things that fly by
What will we be like?
Where will we live?
We will we both be successful?
Will we both take or give?
Questions unanswered
Questions not asked
Some are worth knowing
Some left in the past
Go in with eyes open
Your life will be grand
Just give it your damndest
And go lead the band
In the back of the pickup
My girlfriend and me
Make dreams upon stardust
At a quarter to three
We're out in the cornfield
In my old chevy truck
Planning out lifes direction
On a stroke of good luck
Questions unanswered
Questions not asked
Some are worth knowing
Some left in the past
Go in with eyes open
Your life will be grand
Just give it your damndest
And go lead the band
It may be a spaceship
That's come down from afar
Or we may be there wishing
On some shooting star
Our future is waiting
There'll be tough times ahead
Meeting those expectations
We made in that truck bed
Questions unanswered
Questions not asked
Some are worth knowing
Some left in the past
Go in with eyes open
Your life will be grand
Just give it your damndest
And go lead the band.
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:55 PM UTC
The chill of an autumn morning
A rising steam as the fallen leaves exhale
The lonesome trees have given up their glory
A carpet of red, yellow, orange, and brown
An overcast sky with no definition
Is but a blur
Movement indiscernible
There is wisdom in the sky, revealed to a few
The smoke of the day’s first fire ascends
Wafting its familiar fall fragrances
Brings warmth and comfort to the soul
And campsite memories of long ago
We pass the bleak and barren cornfield
Stippled with autumn’s harbingers
The Raven
They stare with the blackest of black eyes
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC
(Chirstmas Day, 1917)THE FIVE O'CLOCK prairie sunset is a strong man going to sleep after a long day in a cornfield.
The red dust of a rusty crimson is fixed with two fingers of lavender. A hook of smoke, a woman's nose in charcoal and ... nothing.
The timberline turns in a cover of purple. A grain elevator humps a shoulder. One steel star whisks out a pointed fire. Moonlight comes on the stubble.
"Jesus in an Illinois barn early this morning, the baby Jesus ... in flannels ..."
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The cornstalks vanished overnight
Shaven fields once flowing, green and gold
Like Dad’s evening whisker stubble
Ghost limbs of the cornfield
Flocks of nomadic Ravens
Feast on the invisible
And scowl with those empty black eyes
Impervious to man’s judgment
And I think,
There is nothing as beautiful
Than the first snow on a barren field
Shadows playing with the evening light
And dance among the vacant mounds
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 6:33 AM UTC
The closest I can
get to you is
the farthest I can
get from here -
the farthest I can get from
these dreadful Columbus clouds
that protect me from
the unknown,
the lonely cornfields that grow
and grow, but
only grow lonelier.
But I like the clouds that
blanket me at night, keeping me
warmer than you ever could.
And I love the way the sun
rains orange and pink on the lonely
cornfield, and the way the cornfield
soaks it up and saves it
for another day.
I could love you if
you could love Ohio's cornfields
and cloudy days.
Jan 30, 2011
Jan 30, 2011 at 4:00 AM UTC
She's got roses in her hair
And*** mud*** over her heels
Her sun kissed skin shines
As she dances in the meadow
Her brash laughter sings
Throughout the cornfield
The breeze twirling her; dizzily
As if in a ballroom; like a lover
Eccentric is what she seems
But really she's a girl
A girl who is free
To spend her days frolicking
In nature's company
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
Just when you think
the road leads to nowhere
crops up the moss veiled house
its crumbling bricks make greyer
the sky with the hush of twilight
and you rue with melancholy
the night under its roof assigned for you
but the old man like a seasoned spider
lets you forget you're trapped for the night
to his web spun from timeworn earth
as you stare engrossed upon his face
outlined by glowworm sparks
he recounts it was all marshland
he grew into bowl of harvest
and how he was blessed with
the most beautiful woman on earth
then reaching the crescendo
his words thin into whispers
when he tells you his two poor eyes
were not enough to hold her beauty
so she putting a stone on her heart
spread wings on a night like this
the cornfield wilted
he wizened into an endless wait
with gracious death saving his bones
to lighten his heart to a stranger
who comes alone.
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
Do you remember when we saw the Milky Way
Looking up at the night from your father’s cornfield
We were too far north for tick checks
Wading under the bridge
Minnows eating dead skin off our toes
While hornets buzzed at the banks
Shooting guns at old VCRs and broken microwaves
Laying on our backs on the grass
We watched his Fourth of July fireworks
The embers landing in our hair
And when the smoke cleared
The Milky Way, again
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 6:54 PM UTC
When in sad
I hide it
I stare out windows and pretend I'm in a movie
When I'm sad
My smile fades
Then pops back up to mask me
When I'm sad
Sunrise and sunsets are most beautiful
When I'm sad
I sing sad show songs in my head
When I'm sad
You could make me smile
But you don't know me well enough to see through my mask
If I'm obviously sad
Then I'm trying so you will come and cheer me up
I'm smarter than a 5th grader
When I'm sad
No one can tell
Not even you
"Ok that's Cool too"
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 10:42 AM UTC
I saw the news in obituary black and
alabaster-chamber white. Women mulled about
in shining dresses, all pinwheel-galaxy black.
The men’s suits: darkness-between-
stalks-late-in-the-cornfield black
The pastor wore a Cosmopolitan’s-table-of-contents
white stock in the non-air-conditioned
church. His sermon dripped on the bereaved
like hardening wax. A portly woman wheezed
in the second row. A first-roadkill-of-summer
red paper fan swayed idly in her left hand.
The coffin creaked, 4am-grandpa‘s-coffee brown
the procession moved outside slowly. The moment
was like when two trains are idle and one begins
to drift forward. From inside the other,
it feels as if we are drifting backward.
Backward to days before with the namer in his study.
He has on his 1862-edition-Les-Misérables tan
blazer. His wrists crawl out the undersized sleeves.
Above his roof, the sky milks over
to 4th- grader’s-scratched-locker blue.
A wine glass full of just-waking-up-seeing-steam-
waft-from-under- the-bathroom-door white wine
rests on his particle board desk. I want a 70s B movie villain
to bust through the door yelling, "I’m not sorry" and shoot him
with a chipping-paint-bike-rack-next-to-the-library¬ grey revolver.
I want the namer to be speechless, knock over the wine glass
and die with grandma’s-new-couch red pooling on his blazer.
The truth is my grandma’s new couch is this ugly
brown-yellow color. I don’t really know how to describe it.
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 5:09 PM UTC
She told me
"I'd disappear for a while if I could trust my self to come back to all of this"
She won't come back to this
She's too big for this
She's too big for this
Or I'm too small for her
Or the horse she rode in on died
And now she's riding off on an elephant
I don't know
Not all surprises are surprises
Sometimes we just act surprised
So that the other person doesn't feel bad about us knowing ahead of time
I've never really been in a fight
So I don't know what hurts worse a sucker punch
Or a punch you see coming
Either way this hurts
A lot less like a punch
And a lot more like getting branded at a bonfire in a cornfield by your best friend with a paper clip
It burns
Then bleeds
Then welts
Then itches
For along *** time it itches
Then when it's done itching
It's there
Forever
And every time someone sees it for the first time you have to tell that story
Of how you you got your *** burnt with a paper clip by your best friend in a cornfield at a bonfire
Or about getting sucker punched
Or surprised
Or about being too small for her
Sometimes you grieve before their gone
You write your love letters and goodbye notes at the same time
And you've seen her go so many times in your mind
That by the times she actually does ride off on an elephant
It's like you're watching reruns
And just crying out of habit
But sometimes you want to feel like size doesn't matter
That whether she's too big for this
Or I'm too small for that
That somehow it just fits
That's when you grieve
Before they're gone
When they're going
And after they've left
And you spend your nights wondering who the good guy was
But no one wears black cowboy hats or white cowboy hats in relationships
So you never get to know who the good guy was
I want to think it was her
I'm starting to believe it was me
And that hurts
To think I was so wrong for so long
You see size tends to matter
When you're reaching for the stars
One of you is going to reach them
Swing of Orion's Belt and grab the moon
And while they're staring back at earth
You'll still be here
Pumping your Reebok's
Trying to get just enough air in your shoes
To be just big enough
To jump just high enough
That they're just won't forget you
While they're off doing things
That you are just too small to do
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 3:59 AM UTC
The closest I can
get to you is
the farthest I can
get from here -
the farthest I can get from
these dreadful Columbus clouds
that protect me from
the unknown,
the lonely cornfields that grow
and grow, but
only grow lonelier.
But I like the clouds that
blanket me at night, keeping me
warmer than you ever could.
And I love the way the sun
rains orange and pink on the lonely
cornfield, and the way the cornfield
soaks it up and saves it
for another day.
I could love you if
you could love Ohio's cornfields
and cloudy days.
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 7:06 AM UTC
Cornfield highways
& pumpkin pie
leaves are waving
a glad goodbye
tractors shining
in the sun
grateful for
a job well done
colors brighter
than any known
on winds of change
how they have blown
sappy flowers bow
their head to pray
thanking you
for time you stay.
Cherie Nolan© 2016
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 8:10 PM UTC
She's got roses in her hair
And mud over her heels
Sun kissed skin shines
As she dances in the meadow
Her laughter sings
Throughout the cornfield
The breeze twirling her
In a ballroom; like a lover
Eccentric is what she seems
But really she's a girl
A girl who is free
To spend her days frolicking
In nature's company
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
Love.
Love is
awful/wonderful/
terrifying/beautiful/
frustrating/amazing/
foreign.
It's amazing how something that you've never had
can leave such an empty feeling inside you.
I was made with an empty space in the middle of my heart.
Meant to be filled with someone's "I'll love you forever."
There must have been a mishap in the factory, though,
because there seems to be no complimentary piece.
I have a mantra I go through, a set of excuses I remind myself of
whenever a chance is lost, an opportunity runs sour. '
I call them "The Three Things I Know To Be True About Love."
Not interested? Someday he will be
Isn't into relationships? Someday he will be
Isn't attracted to you? Someday he will be
Well, I can't say I know the third part to be true.
I know what you're thinking.
Sad, whiny fat kid complaining about something he caused himself.
Look, I know what I look like. I know what it allows me in life.
To be fair, it is my own fault. I've let myself stretch,
outgrowing my skin and confidence till they're threatening to burst.
I know it would be hard to look at me and say "I love you."
I never have been able to do it.
I think if I heard it just once, though, I'd be satisfied.
Just to give me the sensation having the words
pass through me, enveloping my insides
with warmth, hope, promise.
I'm not asking you to mean it. I couldn't ask you for that.
Even though I'd know of their false implications.
I have always been a fan of playing pretend.
I know that I'm young,
and that I haven't been far outside of the
cornfield fence that has enclosed me for 19 years.
But patience has never been a virtue I've held.
I'm just someone who is desperately tired of "somedays."
All I'm asking for is a "today."
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 10:38 PM UTC
There's a cricket inside our room
but I'm trying to sleep and shouldn't
think about cricket legs
how it used to be
running real fast
in a cornfield your perspective changes
faster and faster
the rows of corn sprout legs longer,
much longer than your own
just watch them hop from one row to the next
velocity put to melody that
winged beasts sing for
fickle corn-ears...
soon, the memory drift'd asleep.
Jul 21, 2011
Jul 21, 2011 at 10:53 PM UTC
There is always a breeze here
and there’s a white gazebo
in the shade of the house
it is all as perfect
as it would appear
to Norman Rockwell
In the back, there’s a flowerbed
the names of the flowers, I don’t recall
and perhaps
never knew;
but the names on the headstones that sleep there
I’ve always known
and I will remember them
until my name is worked into a rock as well
Over here used to be
nothing,
but now there is
a taller than tall apple tree
as old as I am
and twice as wise
I come here sometimes when
life gets too congested and I
need to breathe
or sometimes just when
I have nothing else to do
but think and write about things
I don’t know
I sit back in the gazebo
pretending to admire the comforting cornfield’s endlessness
like the simple man I sometimes wish I was
I imagine I believe in God
or at least, Heaven
and pretend to feel them looking down at me
*I smile at myself
on their behalf*
I think about all the years
my grandpa spent building that house
and the stories he told me, my father,
about the kind of mother she was
and I think it would make them happy
to know that someone hasn’t forgotten
about the place that,
for some reason, I can’t quite figure out,
always has this breeze
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 12:19 PM UTC
__Let October’s fool fall
With the autumn dusk;
A cornfield tatterdemalion
With terrible teeth
And broomstick hands.
High on the hill,
Encircled by dancing children
And harvest lovers,
Jack’s pumpkin blazes
As yellow as prairie gold
Under the ghostly lantern moon.__
Nov 5, 2020
Nov 5, 2020 at 3:46 AM UTC
Do you remember that day
We go in your old Volvo after class
And drove west out into west of nowhere
Passing a museum about dinosaurs
And their place in western Mass.
Until we found that old, small town
That belonged in another era,
With small houses, and small streets
And signs on the doors giving various history degrees.
The music you played didn’t fit
With the scenes we passed,
Children on bikes that laughed at us
As we stared down their streets
Hands over eyes like explorers
Notebooks out and ready like cartographers
Pens tips chewed in the ends of our mouths
Like the writers we wanted to be.
And It was all fun and games
Until we had to turn around,
In that corn field of all places,
That seemed to never end,
Because it was fall and the corn stalks yellowed
And I imagined they would have crunched under our feet
In the cool autumn air
I breathed through the open window.
You went deer-in-the-headlights
As some farmer came by in his truck
And you started joking
-Until fear start creeping-
“This is the end for us,”
Because it looked like something from a film
Where two college kids die alone in a cornfield,
****** unsolved
Scythe found with no prints
The beginning of a bad movie script.
But we lived,
Because he gave us directions back home
Back to route 93
Or 94, or 270
Where we parted for one of our final times
Before you left for the big city,
Losing this memory to history
Like all those little houses
And all their little families.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC