"foraging" poems
Black surges, forges piling emotion,
Foraging, attaining such predicted erosion.
Color the rubies to a diluted amber,
Brittle, dripped gems are toxic, I clamber
To the lamp as to see my implicit devotion.
Vitals ascend, and I can't perceive
This motionless forfeit I often receive.
Aid is essential, it holds potential,
To cure this conflicted, addicted vessel.
My heart on my sleeve, I'm undeceived.
I implore to explore, as breath, I leave,
So close to dying, I'm on the eve
Of darker clothing, and flowers to family,
Hallucinate my abnormalities.
Yet somehow, I am still on my feet-
May 17, 2018
May 17, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
The castle in the smoke
sneaking
like a reptile foraging
in the city
tirelessly
the blue-colored flame
awaiting the servants
the colors of sounds
staining
all over shadiness
the scarecrow with a hat
stumbling through
the dark
the wand of a magician
melts away
the ancient bed
and the love
locked in the sarcophagus.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 9:49 PM UTC
I did my part, by staying in.
So effective, bored.
It’s a sacrifice.
The soul is very passionate.
The isolating, the flattening.
Foraging coercion.
For Immuno compromised persons!
Stay in your homes.
Prevent the increase in tombstones!
Then pat yourself on the back.
Knowing all the people you have saved!
Staying in, flattening the curve again.
Outcome, only time will tell.
Feeling relieved I’m not the only one!
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Oh, there are arrogant ******** not taking this seriously.
But there are others doing their part.
The nurses and doctors have gone mad.
With people taking all their masks.
But when we cure it all,
The faith will be restored,
Who hopes we will be blessed?
We could start over,
Just cover your mouth when you cough!
It’s that simple.
Now there’s time to watch streaming platforms.
Helpfulness, committed.
To doing what I can.
I’m not the only one.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
Fake news outlets (social distance)
Only check AHS, for info (social distance)
Your support to fund research would help (social distance)
Can’t stop the spread (social distance)
If you don’t stay home (social distance)
This is a must (social distance)
I’m not the only one.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 5, 2020 at 1:51 PM UTC
Outside two squirrels foraging
Inside one hundred and one keys tapping
Three buttons clicking and one wheel spinning
Eight hours a day sitting badly
In an ergonomic desk chair
Soft fingers tap on plastic and glass
Weak muscle memory of calluses and splinters
And sunburn blisters from another life
Outside the old prairie wind howls like a phantom
Lost in urban canyons buffets the panes
Drives the torrents of freezing rain
Hard droplets tap on metal and glass
While inside our high-rise terrariums we sit
Generating transient value that flits
Up into the clouds till whenever
You tap plastic to trade your invisible worth
For a hot meal in a disposable bowl
Ponder and sip in another life you could be
Spending all day in the freezing rain
Hunting squirrels for soup
Feb 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 at 4:57 PM UTC
black bee
head first in a
hibiscus flower
waxy pollen beads
dabbled down
its gleaming back
foraging done
it shimmies out
to spy the next
allurement
darting and hovering
as it chooses its mark
close enough
to feel its pulsing whir
breeze the hair
on my arm
I hover too
allured
and unfurled
before turning to dart
through this
shimmering world
Tom Spencer © 2018
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 7:03 AM UTC
Instead of foraging around making connections
with cables and wireless systems that
bluetooth and sync their way
into our pocket technologies
and portable screens
(tablets of which we self-prescribe
and regulate through overdose
and comatose keenings of stillness
and waking dreams)
why, instead
don’t we fool around
making connections
with others of like mind and brainwaves
instead of radiowaves and
the mastered minds of computer waves
and lift an arm and
really wave
beyond our windows to
real people
in real time
rather than peeping
like a holographic Tom through
tabs and browsing windows,
multi-tasking time in a state of mime
like it’s about to expire
(like the wireless wires will break)
and all that we’ll have is
all we can physically take
from this moment awake we call ‘life’
– a mistake.
What else is left now
in this vegetative
one man one woman state
where we live to close our eyes
and shut our minds and wait for
the modem-router to re-dial and
get our avatar back online and
our friends back into our
multi-dimensional realer-than-time
time?
Pseudonyms solving identity changes
emerge without birth
with designer non-faces, as
now that we no longer need imperfection
or meaning or privacy
or even perception
we alter ourselves to impress our connections
with whom we connect without really connecting
by hiding as one almost nearing detection
and tip-toeing straight past
concern or reflection
(invisible firewalls at our protection)
our own walls around us
with keys we can capslock,
screening ourselves from unfriended friends,
and playfully sated by charm and ‘pretends’
that will mean next to nothing
when fantasy ends.
Where ARE the connections we make
in this digital age
that we rarely turn off since
the internet craze has become a new God
that we dial to be saved
as we sacrifice friends we once made
face to face
with those we are longing to meet
as we race across networks
with hunger and haste and
with spambots and data and viruses made
to detect and infect
and reject, just for starters,
and that’s not to mention
the ads and the logins and
passwords that lock us
from somewhere far yonder
that doesn’t exist
as we grow ever fonder
of pics and of pixels and
texts of expression
– the reality of which
we could lose in a second.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
fickle day
leaf-chaser squalls
end-of-summer molt
‘white bellies’
the dry gale has begun
pick and claw
limited feeding & foraging
beam winds, warps
and tides
the dry gale has begun
swimming legs
swimming legs
where is bottom?
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 2:21 AM UTC
___FLUFF:___
_Frequently, I discover words with hidden meaning, shining like coins in a handful of fluff, apple seeds and other down-the-back-of-the-sofa leavings. Some are too precious to share and I secrete them away. Others I spend cheaply on rigged slot machine verbiage. Mostly they sit waiting to be written usefully. Adding insight, lending moment to my day._
§
___NONSENSE:___
_Foraging amongst the dahlias
For Cinderella’s lost slipper,
I am Barbie magic made manifest,
I am Germaine (sodding) Greer’s antifem,
I am Super Mum with gumboots on._
§
___ABSURDITY:___
_The best nonsense is always spoken in the middle of the afternoon while heading north on a train bound for a smallish beige town, and so it was that the occupants of second-class carriage BG1754 found themselves gripped by a kind of eloquent hysteria as they rattled around the final bend in the tracks before the steep descent to the weatherboard station at Claggy Peat._
Apr 3, 2021
Apr 3, 2021 at 3:51 AM UTC
Hanging from the tree
Red berries of winter call,
Suspended from decay
Frozen in life by the cold,
Substance hard to find
Foraging for scraps
Nuts,
Berries,
Leaves,
Are no more,
For trees have shed there coats
Leaves like skeletons,
No life just the remnants of before
In this winter cold,
Where the wind is the enemy,
Howling,
Freezing,
Pulling you closer to deaths door,
But in the sun light
Red berries,
Glisten, life's benefactor,
Hanging there, beckoning
To keep hunger away,
Frozen as if for me, the best tasting
For any animal to feed,
Eating my full, hunger kept at bay,
Still many left,
Will I be the only that is saved from death,
I bury a few more,
May be for a later day,
But for know I must sleep
And be safe from winters chill this day.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
Something simple, something sweet...
Something magical, my souls favorite treat.
The calm before the storm. A captivating blur,
Of feelings no bystander could infer.
A magical intensity of silent poetry.
Bittersweet bliss manifesting inside of me.
Spontaneity whipping through the air.
All sense of reality halts in the company we share.
Clouds of the past dissipate,
With each ray of sunshine you create.
A roller-coaster ride lacking a safety belt,
Surpassing any type of affection ever felt.
Like riding a wave, yet a board would serve no purpose...
If you have me constantly floating above the surface.
Reality holds no depiction to genuinely describe,
The notion of comprehending all that is inside.
Foraging for a taste of your soul, my eyes are met with a blue abyss.
Shaded ripples of Nirvana, too precious to resist.
Drifting towards the center, a black hole draws me in.
Here I realize I had found my key to explore within.
A whirlwind of beauty emerging from every angle.
So engulfed in the chemistry, I am now comfortably tangled.
Smacked with a supercharged rush leaving me numb, frozen with awe.
Eventually revived, your lips casually departing mine...the first thing I saw.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
Hops and topsy-turvy jumps ― blurred movement
muddles across the dewy meadow floor,
as though dawn brushes away the sandman’s magic
from the corner of sleepy eyes,
to cast an enchanting spell
A sudden hazy yet abrupt stop…
hastily, halting , frozen motionless
Stillness, as if some final destination has been reached…
Neck stretched and craning,
tilted with an eye to mother earth ;
a canted focus beyond interruption
In the blink of an eye,
with a vigor too rapid to capture,
as the nowness of urgency flashes ―
She stretches the earthworm
with the grasp of subsistence
knowing after fall becomes the long winterlude.
The morning sun illuminates the glow of the native Maple’s
glorious fiery orange and yellow color palette
A steady stream of animation rushes in and out
of the giant tree’s golden splendor
Abundance perishes with the seasonal gardens decay.
Mornings of blueberry and strawberry feasts
have left the red breasted robbers foraging
for the last rotting apples the deer have left behind.
Harbingers of spring…
Blueberry sneakers…
Gleaners of fall and winter..
“Teeek” “tuk” “tuk” “Tseep”....
fills the overhead air
with a beautifully chaotic verve
The flock returns repeatedly to and fro the towering Maple
to the ripened cornucopia of scarlet berry clusters of the Mountain Ash
The Robin’s flock ravage and gorge on the plentiful delights
Soon the crimson berries fuel of flight will disappear
as if it were only an unspoken allusion
of the passing seasons
The pearl gray sky is an ominous backdrop
for the fickle fleeting migrants
Daylight fades as the flock disappears
into a break in the clouds
fleeting unto the ominous pending winter sky…
In the blink of an eye ... life’s senescent seasons
transform the stormy whirling winds of change
bearing the golden Autumn leave’s splendor
across the rolling vista
like a higgledy-piggledy murmuration
of a migrating beautiful mess
The naked rooted scaffold’s branches stretch
across the sprawling tapestry of the wooded sanctuary.
Winter flocks of Thrush and Robins,
arrive on a frosty new dawn
Red breast feathers puff with the morning sun’s rays,
warming the tree tops leaning toward the southern sky;
Their journey here and now,
from distant mountainous horizons,
is part of a soul’s sacred circle of life…
November rivers ...the final autumn entry of 2017
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 10:26 AM UTC
I live in a shoe
And before you ask me any questions
Or if this a metaphor
Or try to sell me a spot in the latest **** development
Let me assure you, I most definitely live in a shoe
It is the left shoe to be exact
Worn down and some spots extra layers of duct tape
To keep out the winter cold
And when it gets icy, I have to be careful
For if I jostle it just right, the shoe can slide a couple feet
You may ask me why, when, what and how
And this is what I will say
I used to work at a school, a crossing guard in the morning
Lunch lady in the afternoon, and chaperone seeing the children off in the afternoon
And with budget cuts, my job was the first to hit the floor
And so was my pension
My retirement was limited and with no health care
It was impossible to see a doctor for my growing aches and pain
And I was left with nothing, until I came across this shoe
Abandoned and tattered, I took to fancying it up
Scrubbing it out, making it into a home
It took me a winter or two to get the insulation right
And the city has all but forgotten this area
So for now, I am safe
Before the corporate giants clamor over the countryside
Pulling up homes like weeds so they can plant their boxed in communities
I am okay in my little spot
Not long the runaways found me
In school the children always ran to me for safety, and now
Their children have found me, these lost children
We are a little family of misfits, foraging off the land
Keeping each other safe
In a world that doesn’t even care if we are alive
Mar 11, 2021
Mar 11, 2021 at 2:28 AM UTC
The fleeing clouds have cleansed the tawny earthen meadows
Migrating sun doth steal away waning light of summer’s glee
High atop fir boughs bow in wind whispered homage
To the sapience the coloured leaves hath gleaned
The sweet scent of auburn brindled pinecone clusters
Ooze of glistening pitchy resinous fruit
Sticky figured squirrels chatter while they gather,
Stashing a survival cache of acorns and spinner seeds,
For another moment in sleepy winter tide dreams
A swirling eddy of spiraling leaves whirl beneath the tall timber
Fluttering gracefully with a gravity only falling leaves embolden
Enchanting like the evanescent timbre poignant piano notes decay
Writhing silent as summer Jasmine’s fragrant final bloom
Dandelion wishes soaring higher to kiss the fleeting winged skies
Lazily adrift up and over Cascade Mountain Crest
Fuzzy treetop flyers ascending far beyond darting dragonflies below
The sliver of golden harvest moon’s blossom aglow ,…
While wishing upon a shooting star's paling gleams
Serendipity sown about whimsically in the blustery wind
For to sow the will of untamed heart’s desires
A festive troop of Chickadees clinging like tiny acrobats
Foraging on ripened ginger hued fir-cone seeds
Wings to the sky wave goodbye to the deciduous cadence
Softly wafting with a pungent Lavender potion scented breeze
There is a secret place where memories go to hide deeply alive
Amongst the wild wood and impending leafless trees,
The only place on earth I've ever understood a sense of belonging
Where Autumn coloured leaves whisper in the gentle breeze ,…
“I would do it all over again”
Come September ,..when the leaves come falling down
© ... September 15th, 2016
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 10:47 AM UTC
For viewers,
I’m adjusting
my face
and while
foraging though
the trunk
full of masks
and manufactured
convictions,
a sack of
amusing diversions
spills into view,
all of it lacking
convincing connection
or anchor…
I’m the
Houdini
of human communion
vanished again
into smoke,
a phantom floating
in air
left behind
for your
entertainment.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 1:43 PM UTC
well... between listening
to the INFO WARS ban...
by the mainstream...
and listening
to Greig's
perfecto
in the hall of the mountain king...
and john williams...
london symphony orchestra
for *the emperor's throne room
scene*?
youtube was always my
testing alternative to
****** megastore listening
booths...
like replacing my ears with
a tongue...
i never actually tuned
in on youtube,
for the indie commentators...
i was always there for the music...
listening to these
content creators,
grovel a penny,
like some Oxfam offshoot?
not cool...
i was always there for
the foraging of music...
never the commentaries...
who said anything about
the commentaries?!
can't be bothered,
won't be bothered,
given that i've been doing this
scribbling for over 10 years,
and hven't been paid a
barnado's penny...
can't be ******* bothered,
mate...
burn in hell;
at this point, you don't dictate,
and... i don't tell you
what you must do...
welcome! free fall!
oh no... like my english neighbor,
he doesn't tell me when i can or can't
light my barbeque...
just so he can hang his washing!
**** off!
the only respected violence is
that against private property rights...
i'd cut his limbs off,
and then hang him off in a noose
composed of, his ******* tongue,
the next time,
he tells me i'm to inform him of
when i do my next barbeque,
prior to him doing his washing...
PRIVATE... PROPERTY... RIGHTS...
YOU ******* ENGLISH! ****
nor king, nor Buckingham Palace
janitor!
**** OFF!
you even know what itchy teeth
implies?
i beg to differ:
you don't want to know,
but i'll let you know;
it implies a desire to own
a pig farm;
and we known what the economics
of pork looks likes...
now apply that in reverse,
to hide, cannibalism.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 11:13 PM UTC
From air I have crept
in spheres
through caves
underground
making an entrance
to the roots
Over time, I am hardened
in the cold Om thrill
up freezing oar,
toads forest
Ice thin
growing over a jewelry box
of mineral instincts
slowly
foraging
for the silica
as it enters me, a cool bath of fingers,
forming thousands of years out of me
Feb 26, 2012
Feb 26, 2012 at 3:13 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
Progress
by Michael R. Burch
There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.
Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.
Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.
The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.
Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...
and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.
NOTE: This poem is almost entirely fiction. There was a Pokemon craze when my son Jeremy was a little boy, and I did see birds and squirrels foraging in parking lots from time to time (and sometimes fed them myself from my car’s window), but everything else is fiction. On the rare occasions that I went to a Burger King, I would go through the drive-in, so I wouldn’t have known who the manager was, or how much time ***** spent on the phone. I think the poem probably started with the image of birds and squirrels squabbling for scraps of food in a parking lot as I waited in a line of slow-moving cars, then evolved as I imagined the hassle of going inside to “speed things up.” Keywords/Tags: America, Americana, American, culture, society, vanity, youth, progress, fast food, video games, Pokemon, MTV, music videos, glamour, models, supermodels, fashion, transparency, see-through, bra, breast, *******
Apr 30, 2020
Apr 30, 2020 at 9:43 PM UTC
In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul
As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold
My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been
I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 7:11 AM UTC
I was out foraging in the woods today,
This morning, when it was cooly,
dark, and quiet, only the birds had a say —
I saw the sun force the darkness to hide,
Allowing me to see;
Strewn branches, twigs and leaves astride.
Dead waste or my fire’s delight?!
I came home successfully,
Joyfully and proudly with the efforts of my might.
May 12, 2024
May 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM UTC
~
*His initial kiss
Is foraging
Ballasting
The solemn experience
Flickers by like sodium lights
It ****** the entrance
Of her thoughts
It settles at the door
To wonderland
Where and there
The pressure meets the surf
Bathing over her
A cleansing ripple
To tide her over 'til spring*
~
Jul 19, 2023
Jul 19, 2023 at 9:49 AM UTC
cut past, an endearing tear in emptiness
glanced upon a hilltop where
the lavender swayed without breeze
picking the soothing color
I wasn't supposed to see
misfitted, trails foraging into
tailor shops and nestle of roses
I am
nothing like those petals red and lavish
something simpler, an aged branch
of great oak trees
birch trees ghostly white
a chip of that, a glint of a knight
don't beat the drums
if the lavender can't even
grow within my sight
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 10:07 PM UTC
Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give
Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals
Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.
Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 5:22 AM UTC
for Onorio Zaralli
Wherever we look, my friend,
we see children at play.
and children in school .
We see children in triumph
and children at risk.
We see mothers at work
or lost in thought.
We see mothers on the edge -
survivors striving for a rainbow.
We see aged ones,
proud of their grand-kin's deeds
and of marks they have etched
on the universal ledger.
We are our forefathers and sons,
granddaughters and mothers,
foraging our way through chaos -
searching for the best map home.
So we hone our skills
and practice our trades
to harvest our daily portions
and navigate the tides of time.
Whoever we are today,
wherever we might wander.
we are our only hope for a better day
the only “us” we can cherish.
Lost in dreams, my eyes gently close
hoping for a well-marked path to follow
paved with respect, compassion and justice
where we may all walk together in harmony.
© 2019 by Robert Charles Howard
Jul 4, 2019
Jul 4, 2019 at 3:48 PM UTC