"plowing" poems
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A little bit of summer
a little bit of breeze
in the days of warmer
love has so much-
to bring, come let us sing
A little bit of freesia
a little bit of lilac
never can resist a scent
-of Ms. Narine
Ogles, a morning scene
A little bit of sunshine
a little bit of eventide
caress upon the shores
-of such imagery,
passions of immortality
A little bit of cosmos
a little bit of crocus
in a glebe-like galaxy
stars white as daphne
from a garden of syzygy
A little bit of cerulean
a little bit of vermilion
shimmers the lucid lake
with trout's and doves
Golly! autumn is awake
A little bit of plowing
a little bit of sow
the hard workers of
-those pumpkins
reaps a stewful of zin
A little bit of snow
a little bit of flail
fly away as butterflies
hibernate as snails
Forging! a winters gale
A little bit of details
a little bit of trail
from dew drops of-
a frozen rose, icicles on
a drowsy bear’s nose
A little bit of sleeping
a little bit of wait
till the sun comes up
gray clouds strew away
spring is here to stay
A little bit of sprout
a little bit of grow
And can it be, on thee
an Epiphany shows
the Lords glorious prose
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 9:56 AM UTC
You've planted daisies
Inside of my heart
And now they're starting to grow.
It's been awhile since plants
grew here.
It's been a garden
full of those potted
plants that you buy
at the supermarket or Home Depot
that you think you'll take care of
but they die soon after.
Gardens are only for those
with green thumbs.
My thumbs are red
from plowing and tilling the soil in my veins
in hopes that maybe
A good planter will come along
and plant the right flowers.
Daisies are starting to grow on me
and I think they're here to stay.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
With the start of the first inning
as the wind whistled through the tree's
Our short stop had his shoulder broke
and the fates blew in on the breeze
This team was a thorn in the side
of the Harding Presidents Club
It was on this night my son Tate
was scheduled to play as a sub
The kid pitching for North Union
hurled a cooking heater down field
You could hear that freight train coming
as it's hide was 'bout to be peeled
Their coach then rallied his talent
pressing their shoulders to the wheel
like natives dancing 'round a fire
driving devils who'd struck a deal
A death defying mid-air, catch
the bounding, ball tossed on the run
The Devil was in town this night
riding in on the setting sun
They dove and slid then nearly flew
as if the angels rode their backs
While running bases half possessed
plowing the field with cleated tracks
No one remembered the last time
that our team had beaten this bunch
That night they took the field in style
serving them all up for their lunch
,
The dice kept coming up seven
and oh prophetically so
When the sun had finally set
the score was seven to zero
Come ye father's follow your child
through the tough times every one
For the oft chance will someday come
when they will have finally won
Tate
© 2012 Tate Morgan
Written
April 12, 2014
Americans love the underdogs.
original
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1342622/
Original video poem of the same
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1354978/
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
It will never tell its secrets
Old boards, an audible moan
Holding up the sagging roof
A crumbling foundation of stone
The years have done their damage
The summers of scorching sun
All the wet and icy winters
A battle with nothing won
An old harness in the corner
Wearing its coat of dust
A plow no longer plowing
Growing a harvest of rust
If we would only listen
Oh, the stories it would tell
Of barefoot kids in the barnyard
Mama ringing the dinner bell
Tonight will be the last night
That it shadows in the sun
Tomorrow it’s gone forever
The old barns race is done
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 3:15 PM UTC
Stick a lolipop
into the mouth of moments
your life is a child
and somewhere in there
you give a flying ****
about the moon
and no it's not cheese.
That mouth knows what dirt tastes like
but that wont stop me from pouring caramel
and cigarettes over it.
I need a fix
of candied dirt
and addiction.
I'm not afraid of the eclipse
because I'm already hooked on the dark.
So lock the door
&
draw the curtains
&
be content.
The tide wont be knocking
no matter how much you
want it to fill the room
or how big is your sweet tooth
because
hunger
is BIGGER
and eventually
anything will do.
So thank the moon we were wearing seat belts.
Otherwise we might be vegetables
eating only exhaust
like Hiroshima
force fed the sun
because
you only make war on an empty stomach
or with an insatiable hunger.
Be content
for the civilians and their children
who only know the taste of war.
Idiot flavored idiots with a hint of
dead mothers
that will bore a cavity so big
it'll put holes in the head
of kindergardens everywhere.
Who write their valentines on bombs.
Who's love murders buildings,
topples families,
plowing through bodies on city streets all to reach
nobody.
Be content
for the people
who aren't
you because when parents ******* in a box
you call a country means
you don't care
you put genocide on the menu
and there are some things that just wont do.
As I grow weary of rivaling chefs pointing fingers
in circles forever
becoming a porthole to the ****** business
becoming the unsuspecting manhole for
the human animal's existence
in crossing.
Mothers may find safe shelter in the sewers
but it reeks of prepackaged liberty
express delivery
to
every where.
Be content.
Because to start a revolution means living it
and what better way,
to ******* a reckless pace
that finishes first in hunger,
starting fist fights with other people's lives
and forgets even sooner,
than
to
be
content.
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 5:08 PM UTC
I had not been born yet.
Still, I can see you at your labor -
alone, scouring the meadows
for the stones -
lifting their gray shoulders
from the moist earth -
pulling them from the
green grasp of briars,
goldenrod, and
Queen Anne’s Lace.
The smell of the earth
must have filled you with
your own childhood memories -
of plowing fields
and cold mornings
trudging across barn yards
mud thick on your boots -
promising yourself
that someday you would leave
and never return.
I can hear the pick axe -
the sharp strikes
against the stones,
and the dull thud
when the earth
swallowed the blade -
and the deep exhalations
when the stones tumbled into
the old wheelbarrow – new then -
that now leans rusting
against my garden shed.
Some of the stones were so large -
far too large for one man –
how did you move them?
I look at the old photographs
and you seem so young –
so much younger
than I am today - and so thin –
staring off-frame beyond the camera.
What were you looking for
in those fields?
I can see you sorting the stones,
stacking them -
building and unbuilding
and rebuilding the walls
and terraces
until the walls were true
and the terraces level
and planted with dogwood,
birches, soft grass for bare feet,
and bordered with roses.
Did you know
that you were building my castle?
That the highest terrace
would be my tower and keep?
I remember calling out to my
knights, my legionnaires,
and tribesmen –
rallying them in defense
of the citadel – ready for
the coming siege.
I also remember looking out
across that verdant kingdom
for the last time -
no longer a king or a boy –
and miles away, across the river
to the west, I imagined
the new home that awaited us.
I couldn’t know
how far away it would be
or what it meant to leave.
This morning,
as I looked out across
the garden that I have built,
I felt the weightlessness of time
and its gravity
settling me into place.
For a brief moment I had
the sensation that I was standing
on the shoulders of
gathered stones.
(for my father, Guy Spencer.)
Tom Spencer © 2015
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:13 PM UTC
1
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
2
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—Would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
3
Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
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For seasons the walled meadow
south of the house built of its stone
grows up in shepherd's purse and thistles
the weeds share April as a secret
finches disguised as summer earth
click the drying seeds
mice run over rags of parchment in August
the hare keeps looking up remembering
a hidden joy fills the songs of the cicadas
two days' rain wakes the green in the pastures
crows agree and hawks shriek with naked voices
on all sides the dark oak woods leap up and shine
the long stony meadow is plowed at last and lies
all day bare
I consider life after life as treasures
oh it is the autumn light
that brings everything back in one hand
the light again of beginnings
the amber appearing as amber
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Glacier,
Flake
Time
Crystal
Collective
Mass
Gravity,
Flow
Breaking
Celibate
Monastic
Oath
In
This
Cathedral
Tower
Bedrock
Cracking
Groans
Moans
Under
Exponential
Cave
Crush
Crevasse
Plowing
Scoring
Tearing
Mush
Melt
Calving
Diving
Block
By
Block
Headlong
Into
Wave
Reflecting
Clouds.
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 9:04 PM UTC
Frozen solid in a block of ice
A wedding ring shines bright
The blizzard came out of nowhere
Trapping her in the night
Three days later they find her body
Frozen from her head to her toes
A stranger all alone lost in the snow
A woman that nobody knows
They brought her body back to town
And laid her in the stable
What happened next was miraculous
Some say only a fable
Weeks went by that turned to months
But her body would never decay
She looked the same as the day she was found
Until that faithful day
A farmer in the spring was plowing his field
And the bones of a man was found
A wedding ring was glistening in the sun
Where he laid on top of the ground
They brought the bones back to town
And laid them beside his bride
As soon as the two were together again
Her skin became broken and dried
They buried them both beneath an oak
That stood between two springs
When no names were found to write on the cross
They mounted their wedding rings
Jul 6, 2010
Jul 6, 2010 at 8:38 PM UTC
sweet summer thick with late day sun
all the the children running with laughter's an joys
the men plowing in the rich soil
the women hands to hips all the washin to be done
hear em singing as each stitch laid to cloth
hear em laughing under the beautiful sun
aint no living to be done till you lived
natural on the land....
sweet summer thick with late day sun
walking back now to gather for supper
hear em singing with joys bounty
aint no living to be done till
ya come live under a sweet summer sun
all the children sleepin under the night sky
all the folks dreamin wonderful lives
aint no living like under the natural sun
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 10:34 AM UTC
he rides his bicycle in the the
torrential rain
plowing a froth quick and fierce
through the rivers created
the cycle once bright orange
has patches of rust the size
of cantaloupe
and has a blue hoodie wrapped
round the seat which smells musty
you can feel him panting
bathed in sweat
as each hill retains more and more of
his hard earned pace
but mother nature is kind to her
strangest son
and every hill has a
fly by the seat of your pants
whoop whoop laughing
breeze in you hair bugs in your teeth
downhill
shift to vision miles distant from
that smile
the cycle lay in the weeds by the river
broken
the night obscures
the riderless iron steed
its form twisted
it has expressions of pain in appearance
that paint cannot contain
pain for its own lost
freedom of the road
but pain for its rider
the years count on and on
from that downhill smile moment
that lives on in the heart
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 8:57 AM UTC
There, high aloft the flaming sky
Ablaze with the sun's intense heat
A boy, calmly, gaily did fly
The world a globe beneath his feet
The sky an eye of molten blue
The fields green blooming in gold
Of wheat and grains, the ploughman drew
Whilst calm ocean waves did unfold
And crashed against the mighty shore
Studded with rocks, and moist and cool
Where sat upon the golden floor
The fisherman near the dull pool
Trying throughout the weary day
Catch any fish, a meal to serve
His cursed stomach which growled fray
And twined in locks each of his nerve
And on that pool, a fearsome ship
With azure flags, a dreary mast
Most quietly, quickly did skip
The tremulous ocean waves, past
Stealing the food the fisherman
Yearned to catch but never did he
And Icarus flew higher than
His father had told him to be
Out of his thrill, his bliss, his joy
He tried to claim the sun, the skies
Only his tries made him the boy
To fall into his dark demise
And as he rose, he rose most high
He lost his wings, like bright the oars
Once pedaling throughout the sky
Melted away, he lost his course
And suddenly his feathers flew
Like pollen in the midst of spring
And down into the profound blue
He went on fast and tumbling
His cries for pleas were never heard
Ne'er spoken from his withered throat
And down just like an injured bird
He tumbled and drowned near the boat
What marvelous a sight as seen
A boy tumbling from out the sky
Ne'er the ploughman plowing the green
Did see him, he was left to die
Tumbling further beneath the brine
As Daedalus flew high around
“O, gods, where is the son of mine,
There is no sign, there is no sound
Of his warm breath, his lively beat
That chimed away in gaiety
Where did he go, did his end meet
O, what have you have done to me!”
And so he flew around, away
Fisher saw nix, the boat passed by
And life continued day by day
As Icarus was left to die
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
So I was sitting at home watching a movie when nature called me and told me that it was time to drain my bladder. She is such a sweet lady. So I do my business and I flush the toilet. but oh no! It wouldn’t stop running! If it keeps running like that, it will make the water bill go up which would cause our family grief beyond anything!
I was taken aback and scared at this atrocity, making me realize that the toilet demon has come again to make us pay for using his burial site for plumbing. I gathered all of the courage that I could muster and I screamed, “I will save this house from the toilet demon!”
I took the lid off of back and could hear the demon laughing at me as he kept the water running, I notice that the water would stop if I kept a piece held up. But alas! It wouldn’t stay up! I thought deeply on what to do. There were no rubber bands and tape wouldn’t hold. But string would! So I rushed to the armory, otherwise known as the pantry, and I found some string, and some electric tape as well! I gathered my tools and with a battle cry, I rushed back to the bathroom. I could have swore that I heard the yells of other men, and the sounds of horses plowing through the ground, while the music from the film 300 played out loud.
I rushed into the bathroom and lifted my tools! Then the water stopped and the toilet had finished its cycle and all was silent and still. I cursed, dropped everything, and went back to sit down and watch my movie, thinking that I let the plumbing get a little out of hand.
The End
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 5:35 PM UTC
He that had come that morning,
One after the other,
Over seven hills,
Each of a new color,
Came now by the last tree,
By the red-colored valley,
To a gray river
Wide as the sea.
There at the shingle
A listing wherry
Awash with dark water;
What should it carry?
There on the shelving,
Three dark gentlemen.
Might they direct him?
Three gentlemen.
"Cable, friend John, John Cable,"
When they saw him they said,
"Come and be company
As far as the far side."
"Come follow the feet," they said,
"Of your family,
Of your old father
That came already this way."
But Cable said, "First I must go
Once to my sister again;
What will she do come spring
And no man on her garden?
She will say 'Weeds are alive
From here to the Stream of Friday;
I grieve for my brother's plowing,'
Then break and cry."
"Lose no sleep," they said, "for that fallow:
She will say before summer,
'I can get me a daylong man,
Do better than a brother.' "
Cable said, "I think of my wife:
Dearly she needs consoling;
I must go back for a little
For fear she die of grieving."
Ask no such wild favor;
Still, if you fear she die soon,
The boat might wait for her."
But Cable said, "I remember:
Out of charity let me
Go shore up my poorly mother,
Cries all afternoon."
They said, "She is old and far,
Far and rheumy with years,
And, if you like, we shall take
No note of her tears."
But Cable said, "I am neither
Your hired man nor maid,
Nor your ape to be led."
He said, "I must go back:
Once I heard someone say
That the hollow Stream of Friday
Is a rank place to lie;
And this word, now I remember,
Makes me sorry: have you
Thought of my own body
I was always good to?
The frame that was my devotion
And my blessing was,
The straight bole whose limbs
Were long as stories-
Now, poor thing, left in the dirt
By the Stream of Friday
Might not remember me
Half tenderly."
They let him nurse no worry;
They said, "We give you our word:
Poor thing is made of patience;
Will not say a word."
"Cable, friend John, John Cable,"
After this they said,
"Come with no company
To the far side.
To a populous place,
A dense city
That shall not be changed
Before much sorrow dry."
Over shaking water
Toward the feet of his father,
Leaving the hills' color
And his poorly mother
And his wife at grieving
And his sister's fallow
And his body lying
In the rank hollow,
Now Cable is carried
On the dark river;
Nor even a shadow
Followed him over.
On the wide river
Gray as the sea
Flags of white water
Are his company.
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I am the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is ****** out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.
2.5k
Every since I can remember I have thought it was a trap. .
I remember my grandpa teaching me how to shave with the cap on the razor, I just went through the motions ..
Playing in the dirt and plowing the field made me happy.
I ran around the house in long shorts and no shirt
My hair was never to be fixed up
You never would catch me in a dress if I could help it .
Bows were never the things I wanted to wear
Once I started to develop I was told to wear a shirt at home, I couldn't understand it.
I just wanted to be like my brother.
There is just the thing, everyone wanted me to be more like my sister. .
For a few short dreadful years I had to play my role as a girl.
Why I asked myself why did this happen to me?
Would I ever get to be who I was supposed to be?
How could this be?.
What did I do to deserve this?
Could I fix this if I try?
But Mama I'm not attracted to a guy I would say
She would be furious all I knew was I could try to make her better.
I just had no emotion for quite some time.
Only few selects got me through that rough time.
But what is it, why did this happen to me?
I wasn't switched at birth, but simply didn't develop right.
I'm missing some of my parts, you gave me the wrong ones.
These arent what feels right and it hurts, why do people stare?
Please sir, No sir, Thank you sir, yes it's joy everytime I hear it, but why can't it always be those?
Is it really to hard to have given them 2 sons and 1 daughter, then it could of been she's just the favorite because she's a girl.
Why couldn't you have made me who I was meant to be?.
The guy that I know I really am, the guy who treats woman with respect, the guy who is kind and polite, the guy who has manners when the time is right, the guy who repects all who repects him, the guy who has a sensetive side, the guy who is just one of guys, the guy who all girls wish they had ( yes I have been told this many of times) , the guy who always finished last due to a big factor of all the parts being wrong.
Thankfully I found the girl who would love me for who I am no matter the luggage I carry.
Hurting On The Inside,
The perfect guy trapped in a female body.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 3:21 AM UTC
Uncle Joe,
Quietly a bachelor,
All his 77 years,
Never spoke an unkind word
I ever heard.
Most afternoons,
He sat in his brown chair
Behind my Grandfather.
Two old French men,
Smoking pipes
Talking slow and low
In English, French-laced,
Laden with Quebec enunciation
Though they'd not been back
For sixty years.
I didn't think he'd ever loved a girl,
My Uncle Joe,
And then his nephew spilled the beans
One day to me.
Alice was the damsel's name,
But innocence was not her style,
And so my great-grandma,
Memere, disapproved,
Clucked her tongue,
Hands on hips,
Glared and crossed herself,
Whenever Alice came around.
Still, Joe pursued
Until the day she walked out
To the field where he was plowing
Behind a team of horses.
She didn't think ahead.
So when her dress billowed out
As she walked up,
She set the team in fright.
Uncle Joe,
Too shocked to act,
Fell feet first into the foot board,
And down the field the horses dragged
The plow and Uncle Joe.
They stopped before disaster came,
And Uncle Joe crawled out.
When he stood up,
He ended any chance that Alice
Had with him.
"Dat **** girl near got me ****
His exclamation.
So it was
He lived sixty more years
Safely and alone.
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 8:51 AM UTC
im done learning a language rooted in vanity
like I need to take a selfie for my latest avi to go along with that tweet
and we're up in arms fighting, but its on the hush hush in our subtweets
thinking these anons that ask questions to boost my self security
telling friends, give me just an instant to update my insta
yeah, we're full of wit
spitting captions to gain cheap chuckles
lacing 140 characters together to make a point
less, we're spending time thinking of a cheap rhyme
while in the meantime our headlines are suffering from the lack of attention
because if one more ******* person tells me they're gaining fame
online
with meaningless angles, and pop culture retweeted
im going to lose my ******* mind
this **** is such a waste of time
this shrine made up of the kind of things you call mine
and we're washing out the brilliant minds
that are taking the time
to tell you something worthwhile
we're using a shovel as a ***
and plowing this tool into the ground
when artists all around are trying to dig through the ********
just to show you
that somethings are actually worth noticing
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
AFTER the last red sunset glimmer,
Black on the line of a low hill rise,
Formed into moving shadows, I saw
A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,
Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.
The turf had a gleam of brown,
And smell of soil was in the air,
And, cool and moist, a haze of April.
I shall remember you long,
Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.
I shall remember you and the picture
You made for me,
Turning the turf in the dusk
And haze of an April gloaming.
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To hell with maintaining a fire just so faces could be seen.
I danced on the embers extinguishing little stars and I scribbled in my notes and waited for that one girl to shut up about Twitter and Halloween costumes so I could hear—
the fog dragging its tongue up the valley.
Finally she began to realize the contest she was losing,
took the quiet advice of myself and the wind and went
to go tuck herself
into the tent,
into the safety of ceiling.
But,
you and I
opted to be
coyotes on the hillside.
I took the trail away from our sleeping counterparts,
and flayed you on the dirt where I stripped you of your fur,
howling to the fog and plowing valleys in your flesh,
your legs grew into roots, and wove length by longer length
‘round all the sturdy angles, the anchors of my hips
and you, oh you,
you would **** the marrow from my bone.
And when we lay out, raw and steaming
knees bleeding from the drainage ditch,
a gnawing fades out, falls to dreaming,
we, peeling off a well-known itch.
Then we play a game with satellites
Where bouncing mirrors reflect our minds
And laugh when the reflections never fit.
I gather up my skin, step one foot in and
stumble when the tightness traps my leg,
You pin up your ******* to please our sleeping guests
that wouldn’t take to anything irregular.
On the upward hike ten million lights, ten million lives
herded on the table of L.A.
A Serengeti of fire, a mass migration;
mammoths marching, tusks dipped in flame
Sitting around campfires once taught vocal apes to rhyme
but a million conversations
bleaches each the other white
and now a million electric campfires
bleaches L.A.’s lower sky.
And though I stomped out ours
the ash remains a scar
where we had nearly forgot
how to speak by choosing to not.
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 6:22 AM UTC
The prison bus
passes this way
every now and then,
surfacing without
warning—a leviathan
of metal, grease, and glass
its dark windows secured
by squares of rusted wire
its diesel engine heart
spewing exhaust that
turns morning rain
the color of seawater.
The prison bus
does not stop
for stop signs;
red lights are nothing
but violent memories
strung in an overcast sky.
When the bus strikes
something in its path
the prisoners bounce
slightly in their seats,
lifted into
impartial air
liberated
momentarily
by the familiar
co-conspirators
of blood and laughter.
In his dreams,
the guard who
drives the prison bus
circumnavigates the globe,
plowing through clouds
of insects that shimmer
like fuel above the road.
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 11:02 AM UTC
WHEN the sea is everywhere
from horizon to horizon ..
when the salt and blue
fill a circle of horizons ..
I swear again how I know
the sea is older than anything else
and the sea younger than anything else.
My first father was a landsman.
My tenth father was a sea-lover,
a gipsy sea-boy, a singer of chanties.
(Oh Blow the Man Down!)
The sea is always the same:
and yet the sea always changes.
The sea gives all,
and yet the sea keeps something back.
The sea takes without asking.
The sea is a worker, a thief and a loafer.
Why does the sea let go so slow?
Or never let go at all?
The sea always the same
day after day,
the sea always the same
night after night,
fog on fog and never a star,
wind on wind and running white sheets,
bird on bird always a sea-bird-
so the days get lost:
it is neither Saturday nor Monday,
it is any day or no day,
it is a year, ten years.
Fog on fog and never a star,
what is a man, a child, a woman,
to the green and grinding sea?
The ropes and boards squeak and groan.
On the land they know a child they have named Today.
On the sea they know three children they have named:
Yesterday, Today, To-morrow.
I made a song to a woman:-it ran:
I have wanted you.
I have called to you
on a day I counted a thousand years.
In the deep of a sea-blue noon
many women run in a man's head,
phantom women leaping from a man's forehead
.. to the railings ... into the sea ... to the
sea rim ...
.. a man's mother ... a man's wife ... other
women ...
I asked a sure-footed sailor how and he said:
I have known many women but there is only one sea.
I saw the North Star once
and our old friend, The Big Dipper,
only the sea between us:
"Take away the sea
and I lift The Dipper,
swing the handle of it,
drink from the brim of it."
I saw the North Star one night
and five new stars for me in the rigging ropes,
and seven old stars in the cross of the wireless
plunging by night,
plowing by night-
Five new cool stars, seven old warm stars.
I have been let down in a thousand graves by my kinfolk.
I have been left alone with the sea and the sea's wife, the wind, for my last friends
And my kinfolk never knew anything about it at all.
Salt from an old work of eating our graveclothes is here.
The sea-kin of my thousand graves,
The sea and the sea's wife, the wind,
They are all here to-night
between the circle of horizons,
between the cross of the wireless
and the seven old warm stars.
Out of a thousand sea-holes I came yesterday.
Out of a thousand sea-holes I come to-morrow.
I am kin of the changer.
I am a son of the sea
and the sea's wife, the wind.
1.8k
just before never...
*my last performance,
the words came original
and easy, unlike all its
predecessors; someone
drew me a map of my
life and times, cities,
countries, and roads
well travelled and a few,
not too. Mountains, each with
a woman’s name, who carried
care, until she couldn’t, didn’t, and
time’s weathering returned us
individually into hillocks, and then
rain eroded us back into old soil.
the broad highways and back roads,
always snaking away, fork-forcing
directional choices, usually taking the
wrong way, the easy and safe one,
and how I have come to hate those
words: easy and safe, for they
are the pill combo that leaves you
for dead, dulling the questioning
one inquires of oneself, late, reluctantly.
But there is always the unexpected.
Today I saw a sunset on the Hudson
River with a humpback whale blowing,
running beside a river ferry, plowing the
waters back and forth tween two states.
Lived by this river for s e v e n t y years,
and have seen the whales in many places,
but here, in my city, in the river of my youth,
never.
and I got the sign, message received, there
are still sights and poems to behold, arms to
embrace, youngers to guide if they’ll permit it.
so this title, these two, just before,
this day, poem, came to remind me, the
days map remains unfinished, there are lands
and voyages and poems still awaiting drawing,
and it is tomorrow, and just before tomorrow, that
recording insistent demands, and a map is just a
moment in time, until just before...never*
5:28 AM Thu Dec 10
2020 (a year deserving
of its own line and ending)
Manhattan, between two rivers.
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 5:48 AM UTC
Aging arms splotched with purple and red
signs of tangling with jagged dead branches
among white pines along the back of the yard
reach for a copy of Ted Kooser's _Flying at Night_.
Pages flip for a stop here and there
to read _Sunset_, _Carp_ and _Spring Plowing_
Envy swells inside him with the realization
that he will never write such fine poems
which prompt memories of childhood adventures
living rural among tiger lilies blooming in meadows,
newborn calves teetering toward first steps,
and freshly spread manure capturing the scent of fall air.
His fingers still grimy from early morning planting
place Kooser's volume carefully beside his empty coffee cup
content that he is blessed to have discovered it
that day hiding next to classic tomes by Shakespeare and Whitman.
He rises to tackle digging potholes for double begonias
to decorate his yard and and to dream of pages unread.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC