"picker" poems
Tumbling-hair
picker of buttercups
violets
dandelions
And the big bullying daisies
through the field wonderful
with eyes a little sorry
Another comes
also picking flowers
37.4k
How silly is the little flower
to think that it has such a large impact
on anyone's life.
It's as if it says
"I know I am just a flower
and it's well past the hour
but you picked me from the rest
so I must be the best.
So when I leave,
don't forget me please."
But it's just a little flower
that was chosen for no other reason
than to bring a little bit of happiness.
Yet the flower still speaks,
"I don't understand what you understand
but I know that I am not anything grand.
But it was me that you chose.
You watered me with the hose
and I have grown to be old
but now everything I feel is cold."
Poor little flower,
how long have you been here?
Shivering and shriviling.
But bless your soul you still speak.
"I know some time has passed
since I saw you last.
But I remember your sad smile
and how you had to sit down for awhile.
Your thin white hair has become flat
and I no longer see you sit where you sat."
That small, old flower,
drooped one last time.
With one last sigh
the flower picker spoke.
"I'm sorry little flower
it is well past my hour
and you're as thin as my hair
that has become so brittle without care.
But don't you worry
he is coming in a hurry
and I will not forget you
if you will forget-me-not, too."
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 10:59 AM UTC
The human soul was threshed out like maize
in the endless
granary of defeated actions,
of mean things that happened,
to the very edge of endurance, and beyond,
and not only death, but many deaths,
came to each one:
each day a tiny death, dust, worm, a light
flicked off in the mud at the city's edge,
a tiny death with coarse wings
pierced into each man like a short lance
and the man was besieged by the bread or by the knife,
the cattle-dealer: the child of sea-harbours,
or the dark captain of the plough,
or the rag-picker of snarled streets:
everybody lost heart, anxiously waiting for death,
the short death of every day:
and the grinding bad luck of every day was
like a black cup that they drank,
with their hands shaking.
10k
From the humblest of beginnings
Began a tough innings
A family deprived
His dad had died
So to work he went
To help pay the rent
From a teen to a man
In a short time span
He had many a job
Hard earned each “bob”
He was a keeper of bees
He picked beans and peas
With marbles and shanghai
He had a keen eye
So rabbits he’d stalk
Their pelts he sought
A butcher and baker
And fence post maker
A fisherman and fruiterer
And even spud picker
A shearer of great ability
Those shears he clicked with agility
From morn to night
He worked hard alright
Met a girl and made her his wife
Ten children now blessed his life
He provided as best he could
Forever working for their good
A large family and so little money
Life, of course, was not always sunny
Simply he lived, simple his dwelling
The trials he faced so very compelling
A ****** awful thing was done
A terrible tragedy stole his son
With grief immeasurable and untold
He held together; staying controlled
Children struggled to forgive their mother
As she left him and found another
Yet for her he would always stand
Always hoping to win back her hand
Another tragedy claimed a limb
We thought it would be the death of him
His work, his wife, his health now gone
Yet silently, painfully he continued on
We knew his heart was terribly broken
Yet always forgiveness he had spoken
We knew he lived with daily pain
But silent and strong he would remain
His strength and courage was beyond belief
But for him there would be no relief
His children were now all grown
He died, one night … alone
Jan 6, 2011
Jan 6, 2011 at 12:49 PM UTC
I am sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon
looking in through the gray above the green
hanging over the black shingle roof
of the room where I am sitting.
I can't see me resting here.
The streets of my youth are out my window
through a hole in the trees in the still autumn night.
I must rise to the call of the bread truck man,
to the whinny of the rag picker's horse,
to the distant clanking of a slow freight train.
So far away on the stone faced moon
how long my ears have thirsted
to drink the sounds they cannot drink again,
to sponge the voices from the streets of my youth
and squeeze them back a drop at a time.
Sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon
I can see the globe rolling cars upon it.
Outside my window into autumn is
the incessant din of transportation,
the percussion of outbound movement
toward the stone faced moon where I sit.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 1:44 AM UTC
She’s underhand throwing words with her mouth
The boy leans in past natural borders, to study the agenda in her eyes
He is built like a bent paperclip,
with bottlebrush forelocks, a barracuda jaw.
Between her bare legs, she gently squeezes
a cup of iced hibiscus tea.
She reaches down and lifting it to her lips,
I feel mine part, in thirsting sympathy…
Her upper thighs blush wet with condensation as
The boys eager fingers click on her knee,
like ice cubes in her sweating berry hibiscus,
floral melt cascades down her throat.
Fairy breath lands on my shoulders - my silk overcoat
It makes me dissolve with memory
of my beloved tea picker,
a cocoa skinned Sudanese girl
traveling the road to market in Al-Junaynah,
swaying in the truck bed under a warm sun,
dreaming of red karkadeh flowers
and a paper clip boy.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 9:37 AM UTC
THERE all the golden codgers lay,
There the silver dew,
And the great water sighed for love,
And the wind sighed too.
Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed
By Oisin on the grass;
There sighed amid his choir of love
Tall pythagoras.
plotinus came and looked about,
The salt-flakes on his breast,
And having stretched and yawned awhile
Lay sighing like the rest.
Straddling each a dolphin's back
And steadied by a fin,
Those Innocents re-live their death,
Their wounds open again.
The ecstatic waters laugh because
Their cries are sweet and strange,
Through their ancestral patterns dance,
And the brute dolphins plunge
Until, in some cliff-sheltered bay
Where wades the choir of love
Proffering its sacred laurel crowns,
They pitch their burdens off.
4.4k
FINFIN THE DOLPHIN
Poor Fin Fin, once was Fred's favourite toy dolphin;
But was now sadly rejected; and lying in a dustbin.
Thrown out it was because a drunk servant fed it a little gin.
A small rag-picker boy, picked it up; from the dustbin.
washing it, wiping it; now made it look new and clean.
As he was walking past a river, in it fell poor FinFin.
Sad was the lad, this was really bad; for now drowned FinFin.
A man, consoling him said, "grow n come up one day will, this dolphin".
Come Danny, would daily, our lil boy, to look for his FinFin.
To his astonishment great, one day he saw a big dolphin.
With glee he cried, as he saw it, " look, here's my dear FinFin".
Days went by, with some food, he would daily feed FinFin;
Throw a ball at it, he would n return it back, would the dolphin.
Gathered people now to see this play; giving him money, in a bin.
Happily jump, dance and spin around would, FinFin .
During one such act, along with the ball, fell the lad as he did over-lean.
Promptly picked him up and brought him safely back, our cute FinFin.
Friends for ever they became; lil Danny and our cute FinFin, the dolphin.
Armin Dutia Motashaw
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 5:18 AM UTC
The art of the geniuses
is packed like overstuffed crayons
in the alleyways of my city.
That one is picking his nose.
There is the bench-sleeper.
Here comes the nomad with the stroller.
I watch them carefully like
a soldier on an ambush,
bayonet at the ready,
a little drunk on
self-worth.
They approach and I pause.
I put the camera to my face
and press the shutter.
Turning to me their eyes
beam sorrow.
The nose picker slept alone last night,
the nomad is still lost.
In black and white they
will forever navigate the crawl spaces
of my mainframe.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 12:47 AM UTC
*A fruit gatherer by some chance,
she is deeply immersed in this pursuit
seeking out and gathering ripe fruits,
hidden by the foliage,
but her eyes search far beyond,
sunny day, the impact of beauty all round,
moves her deeply and transforms
her demeanor speaks of an inner tranquility rare,
and the light her eyes emit speaks
all this indicate a deeper meaning to her act,
much more than what meets the naked eyes.
The verdant garden, flowers, ripe fruits,
the fruit picking charmer herself,
are the realities in front,
if one doesn't look beyond and only see skin deep,
it suits him well, what is the prompt of beauty,
he does not know for sure,
absorbed she is, and he sure is aware of being enticed by her fruits,
as much as her,
and he wants to be a fruit picker himself,
we all are, for reasons only our inner selves fully know.*
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 10:14 AM UTC
I didn’t hand it over
I neglected to sign a consent
I never said you could yet you did anyway
a cavity within my chest
anatomical rather than cliché
the mask told me it’s a ventricle then I stuttered okay
hollowed inside thick walls
it gathers substance productively
like a strawberry picker but the berries are smashed
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
Sometime after mid night, it had rained
Putting out summer’s sultry heat
The sky had its face washed clean
And wiped the grime off Earth’s soiled feet
The dawn is quietly breaking
Night lights still glimmer here and there
The blue firmament remains cloudless
And cool is the mild blowing air
The sleeping town is slowly waking up
And at this transitional point
I look out into the street
To see a sight that shall never disappoint
Along the road moves one, ragged and withered
His discolored white hair left unkempt
With hunch back and drooping shoulders
The marks Time has left of the hard years spent
Though age has drained his life sap away
He has a firm resolve never to beg
His frail body supported on a stick
Serves as a veritable third leg
With his staff, he perseveringly stirs
Every heap of abandoned *******
Indiscriminately piled on either side of the road
Hunting for trinkets lying hidden in the trash
A rag picker with a sack on his back
Picking up today’s treasure
From yesterday’s discarded trash
Things, for him ‘priceless’ beyond measure
With complaints none
He faces life and its trials
Never losing the glitter in his eyes
Though a loner in life’s dark isles
I ask myself, why every day
I routinely look for this man who limps along
And I get a quick answer
‘He helps you turn your sobs into a song’
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 6:33 AM UTC
See him wasted on the sidewalk, in his jacket and his jeans
Wearin' yesterday's misfortunes like a smile
Once he had a future, full of money love and dreams
Which he spent like they was goin' outta style
And he keeps right on a'changin', for the better or the worse
Searchin' for a shrine he's never found
Never knowin' if believin', is a blessin' or a curse
Or if the goin' up was worth, the comin' down
He's a poet, an' he's a picker, he's a prophet, an' he's a pusher
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's ******
He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home
He has tasted good and evil, in your bedrooms and your bars
And he's traded in tomorrow for today
Runnin' from his devils Lord, and reachin' for the stars
And losin' all he loved, along the way
But if this world keeps right on turnin', for the better or the worse
And all he ever gets is older and around
From the rockin' of the cradle, to the rollin' of the hearse
The goin' up was worth, the comin' down
He's a poet, an' he's a picker, he's a prophet, an' he's a pusher
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's ******
He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home
There's a lot of wrong directions, on that lonely way back home
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 7:45 PM UTC
A petal picker walks backwards.
A petal picker has a stupid man gripping it's ankles.
A petal picker thinks too much.
A petal picker kills children.
A petal picker doesn't talk a lot.
A petal picker is amorphous.
A petal picker has no face.
A petal picker lacks in poise.
A petal picker makes up his mind.
A petal picker smokes cigarettes.
A petal picker sleeps in the daytime.
A petal picker sleeps in the nighttime.
A petal picker loves the outdoors.
A petal picker adores the beautiful things in life.
A petal picker wears other people's skin.
A petal picker wants to do things.
A petal picker sits down very well.
A petal picker remembers a lot.
A petal picker doesn't do anything at all.
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 2:07 PM UTC
pick a word, let it lead you astray, then (soil)
a poem to exclaim, refracting the sun rays emerging
from the curves of your chested heart, the waggle of
ten fingers conducting your inner song, the baton first
waved swipe to earth pointing, let us commence there:
think of yourself, entirety, as soil, you the potter,
what has been planted by others, nourished by others,
along sides of your ingestions, you the grower, seeded
anew, each word, hybrid edging with existing vocabularies
the sun from without, the sun from within, the rivulets
of water, the arterial pathways, feed the treasure chest,
and you, farmer, planter, grower, picker, plucker of the
produce, serve us, baskets grown on the fruited plain of
poems’ soil consisting of the writings grown in the
unique you,
all of you,
body & soul
Aug 26, 2020
Aug 26, 2020 at 11:01 AM UTC
you're the silly lover
picking flowers for another,
don't you see the thorns that ***** you
when you love like no other?
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 11:13 AM UTC
New faces look through
glass, forlorn features pressed
against the panes figuring
out where this all came from.
Long gone lineage, here in this
hall, is now a pressed image
collected by a flower picker’s hand,
gloved to protect the rust and frozen
within two sheets of glass far taller than
any Yorkshire lass, here somewhere secret.
Old faces gaze at another frame
filled with someone else’s misery,
it’s pinned to another wall next to the
menu for the restaurant down the hall, first left on the second right.
Short queues form under hanging light bulbs,
it’s this month’s exhibition, the Pharaoh’s jewels,
on display all the way from the splayed deserts
of Egypt, but some given by a museum in Manchester
so it looks like there is more than there is.
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 4:27 PM UTC
Reading poems is the way of discovering
that people write for fun, they write of
the very things that you think preposterous.
They write of love, and you write of hate.
Poetry is in many ways charade of indiscipline,
even gross indignity. Gives you joy rides and goose
bumps. Why do people write- poetry?
I deliberate and out of it curse people, write a poem
send it for publication. The laptop creaks. The editor whines
when flooded by my irksome mails.
In the streets of the city, and there are plenty, I see a rag picker.
I see the *****
I see the blinded with begging bowl, but singing. Chanting.
I see barely seven or eight a child pleading for coins and mercy.
I stalk away. Walk away. My hauteur a new demeanour.
Why do people write- poetry?
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 5:29 AM UTC
Let's stand around and talk about taxes and crime
Or watch it on t.v
Cool people only getting cooler
As alcohol leaks
I think I remeber leaving a party with you and falling asleep
on a dew covered hill
But I woke up in my bed
The shirt you had warn
Was pink and white through the haze
Remebering your face
But I still couldn't think your name
...I remember that you said you liked only
The old starwars
And your favorite Zelda
Ocorina of time
You got high with me and watched adventure time
And talked to me about the effects of ether on the human mind
You liked ska and doc martens
With only black laces
Japanese tea pots
BC ***
Black Jack Davey
Tattooed on your neck
You told me you were fourteen
When you last wore black lipstick.
"Far out"
Yellow Submarine
Mushroom picker
The
Tingling of your spine
As it creeps up your neck
I was about to fall away to oblivion
Until I saw your smiling teeth
I got all the way to work without noticing
Jen
And your number on my wrist
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 10, 2012 at 12:59 AM UTC
I cannot fathom the point of shaking
The filthy sleep from my eyes
At the ungodly hour of 9 am
Just to walk around my apartment
Searching for coffee I can't afford.
(The early bird gets the worm, they say.)
(The early bird doesn't ******* get it.)
Scraping together old lotto tickets
Like a garbage picker on payday
Just to cash em' in quickly
For caffeine and crinkled newspaper
Things that make me feel like an adult.
(I've never been much of a saver.)
(Of money, lives or breath, really...)
I rise and shine
In the early PM
Blinds blocking the sunlight in fantastic fashion.
Blindly blocking out the reasons why
It's important to even wake up at all.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
Quite horrible
draw your gun
stand in sun
look into the eyes
and your funeral
conductor.
A crisp breeze
is out circling
like a ghost
planting whispers
in your skull
You stand before
me parked
finger
nipping
at that gun of yours
whilst the sun
enters its prison cell
and the shade grows like a ****
transforming blood a little sharper,
judgding us in this alley
in this cooking kitchen
are peeping standers on a natural
strike- bear witness art exhibition
on the cusp of religion,
two dogs about to bark
and stray
a little more deeply into one another.
Soaked in the black theatre
many chimes of skeleton pearl
crying down the alley
its a dead sea.
hearts choking
in their own blood
sweltering standing two stick insects
feeling steel burn on em’ their finger tips
Daisy pickers glaring at the picker.
Its a field day in hell and someones staying.
One with wings will fly off as soul.
Uprooted in the *** plant of anguish out form within
the solitary dust world.
Steel curtains
and rainbow lizards…
Three streets
one alley
one sun,
one cloud
one keeper.
one judge.
one hell of a shoot off.
Look into the eyes of the timid dog.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 7:58 PM UTC
He perches in the slime, inert,
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock’s eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows within each fiery core
And waits to be made free once more.
Their sharp and glistening edges cut
His stiffened fingers. Through the ****
Gleam red the wounds which will not shut.
Wet through and shivering he kneels
And digs the slippery coals; like eels
They slide about. His force all spent,
He counts his small accomplishment.
A half-a-dozen clinker-coals
Which still have fire in their souls.
Fire! And in his thought there burns
The topaz fire of votive urns.
He sees it fling from hill to hill,
And still consumed, is burning still.
Higher and higher leaps the flame,
The smoke an ever-shifting frame.
He sees a Spanish Castle old,
With silver steps and paths of gold.
From myrtle bowers comes the plash
Of fountains, and the emerald flash
Of parrots in the orange trees,
Whose blossoms pasture humming bees.
He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke
Bears visions, that his master-stroke
Is out of dirt and misery
To light the fire of poesy.
He sees the glory, yet he knows
That others cannot see his shows.
To them his smoke is sightless, black,
His votive vessels but a pack
Of old discarded shards, his fire
A peddler’s; still to him the pyre
Is incensed, an enduring goal!
He sighs and grubs another coal.
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 1:24 AM UTC
I woke up to a sky of grey
a hiding sun, a rainy day
clouds of hail - stormy what nots
rotund, dang and heavy drops
I said to them, be my poem.
Then the clouds of storm cleared
the golden orb appeared
a rainbow spilled color on the grass
the blossoms sang sweetly - unasked
I said to them, be my poem
To the poor man on the street
and the rag picker with bare feet
the cobbler and the fruit seller
the palmist and the fortune teller
I said to them, be my poem
To a new born and then flesh on a pyre
the wind that whisks ashes of fire
to the fragrance of spring and the frost of cold
the stench of garbage and the scent of rose
I said to them, be my poem
I turned to love, anger and defeat
laughed with humour and cried with grief
traced the many fleeting expressions on a face
fluid movements and those without grace
I said to them, stay and be my poem
Then I paused, I looked within -inside
into my heart and in my mind
so I could meet myself and know
see and hear, feel and grow
So that one day, I too may become a poem
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 9:47 AM UTC
I am smiling at your thought that the Apple Picker
has nearly died from standing on that ladder,
From hearing rumbling apples falling into the bins...
I have worked that hard as well, and I didn't die.
When a person works all day, standing on a ladder,
Or holding a paint brush, or swinging a hammer,
Or driving a tractor or truck, or shoveling manure....
You get the picture....
Yes, we grow blisters. Yes, we are exhausted.
Yes, we would rather be lounging on a beach
Almost anywhere else in the world...,
But the truth is this: After a long day's hard work,
Food fills most excellently,
The shower? The shower is the best shower ever,
And the sleep? The sleep is the sleep of the dead,
Dreamless, full of rest....
Apr 2, 2024
Apr 2, 2024 at 7:28 AM UTC