"milkless" poems
the strain of labor
the pain of toil
the ache of legs and arms
the sweating brow
drudging farmer curse the soil
mutely chide the milkless cow
the demon waits for no man.
he rages forth
renders furrows charred
the fields so dry
the rocky ground so hard
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
The upland flocks grew starved and thinned:
Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs
Whose milkless mothers butted them,
Or who were orphaned of their dams.
The lambs athirst for mother's milk
Filled all the place with piteous sounds:
Their mothers' bones made white for miles
The pastureless wet pasture grounds.
Day after day, night after night,
From lamb to lamb the shepherds went,
With teapots for the bleating mouths
Instead of nature's nourishment.
The little shivering gaping things
Soon knew the step that brought them aid,
And fondled the protecting hand,
And rubbed it with a woolly head.
Then, as the days waxed on to weeks,
It was a pretty sight to see
These lambs with frisky heads and tails
Skipping and leaping on the lea,
Bleating in tender, trustful tones,
Resting on rocky crag or mound,
And following the beloved feet
That once had sought for them and found.
These very shepherds of their flocks,
These loving lambs so meek to please,
Are worthy of recording words
And honor in their due degrees:
So I might live a hundred years,
And roam from strand to foreign strand,
Yet not forget this flooded spring
And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.
1.8k
At the coldest of all times,
In the presence of harsh weather,
I as a grass,
As helpless as ever;
Too much cook spoils the broil,
That's why grazing brings so much boil,
To the forsaken grasses,
Who can deliver their spleen to nobody,
Favour! But to themselves!
The rain flogs the hell,
The sun scorches the heaven,
Out of the grasses, as a spell,
They can deliver their spleen uneven
Favour! But to themselves!
The brainless bulk of extractive meat,
Also move to them to cheat,
And graze until they are tired,
Mindless of whether the grasses are fired.
Do they not know that the **** of the fowl aches?
Or do they pretend that they do not.
Can they just eat their cakes?
And continue to keep their font?
Being a grass,
For full days of the hours,
I see our helplessness,
I feel the harsh treatment we have received,
And the many ways we have been deceived.
Erosion comes and sweeps us away!
Rain falls and saps our nutrients away!
Sun shines and shrinks our leaves unprunned!
The brainless bulk of extractive meat graze and
chew us away!
Our colours turn to milkless tea!
At whose mercy are we?
As a grass, I cry, I weep
But no help comes...
I'm short of words...
Yet no help comes...
Nigeria!
Where is the future of your people-the grasses!
As favour is to themselves!
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 10:51 AM UTC
Far in the Prairie, nearer the shadows of hopelessness
There stood a young indigent shepherd
Under the hawthorn tree striving to rich up
Through the thorns, where laid woodpigeon nest
With marks through his body and bleeding fingers
Hunger let no man ever to resign, commonly fathering blokes
From the thatched sheds in the village down the dry hills,
The hunter, left children with moaning paunches
Infant feeding from milkless, shrunken ******* he
Fears mostly to hurl rocks up the tree
Eggs might fall and brake on the ground
Time flows wild with rivers not come again
For he might take longer, and squabs might hatch
And fledge to fly away, and his kids might die of hunger as winter arises
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 4:55 AM UTC
So in Novemeber rain
******* on wet cigarettes like babe at milkless breast
I am passed
by the jogger.
Tanned limbs wrapped in polyester
hair wet by salt and water
I entertain myself
with the thought
that we
are the two types of people
who come out on Monday mornings in weather like this;
scars turning purple in the cold
all numb fingers and gooseflesh
and their breath
as white as mine
against the dark of early the sunrise
is a great leveler
on days like today.
These are the mornings I do not go hungry
in fear of the growing space between my thighs -
the masters of illusion
can make themselves appear invisible
but I cannot conceal my disappearing act much longer.
I am sixteen smoker's cough they tell me
I have a heart murmur I take it
as irrefutable proof I have
a heart feeling
the early
seeds
of death settle
in my chest with every drag,
some things are inexcusable
and I am learning that I am not blameless.
A few too many nights walking under unlit streetlamps
do not make you a victim I am learning that I
am not the victim Atlas shrugging off responsibility
a person
can only carry so much guilt
before they bend and
bad backs run in my family
so
I may be a coward -
but I will never say I was not warned.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 7:41 AM UTC
ALVARADO
Yes, raise the curtain of this maiden world!
Now, shall we find the halls of El Dorado,
Where princes make an almshouse of their mines,
And paupers plate their lumber-shacks with gold.
SANDOVAL
See where the jungle frowns against the shore:
A burial-ground of bright, backwater wealth.
Might there the Seven Enchanted Cities lie,
Where opals roll like pebbles in a brook?
Enter ESCUDERO.
ESCUDERO
My failing eyes still seek the Fount of Youth.
What waste is it to search for sixty years
When one charmed beverage shall reset my clock?
If I should find this spring, then- like Apollo-
I’d shrug at heaven’s everlasting souls,
And strut till doomsday on a deathless earth.
Enter MARÍA DE ESTRADA and GARRIDO.
MARÍA DE ESTRADA
A premiere world!
GARRIDO The theme of long-lost songs.
MARÍA DE ESTRADA
Are there tall tribes of savage Amazons,
Who bend their husky bows with coppery arms,
And lop their milkless ******* to aid their aim?
GARRIDO
Are there foul-featured men- if men they be-
Whose ox-like trunk supports two partnered heads?
Or, floppy-eared and dog-faced manikins,
Who live (they say) on but the scent of blooms?
And yet, if in this thicket dwell such men
As dark as they who cheered me at my birth,
We’ll call you Spanish but a schoolboy’s tale.
And what a pretty picture that will make!
ALVARADO
Cortés alights!
SANDOVAL All silent for Cortés!
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 12:08 PM UTC