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Chris Saitta Aug 2020
The Plowman of the Alone
These clouds of Italy are grown on vines,
Infidels of skies, fruit bearers of wine-veined
Marble, fertile in spite of its own lifeless tableau,
Here thrives the succulent garden of the alone,
Where turns aside the burnt nape of the plowman,
Voyager of the cool midnight seas of the mind,
Up to this arable vine of sighs from outworn gods,
And hears his heart once more give up its throne.
#italy #farming #solitude #plowman #nature #sky #clouds
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Randolph Llewellyn Wilson Feb 2016
Plowman's Prayer
I worship the mattock that tends my Spring field ..
The Apple tree with it's Fall yield ...
The tractor that criss crosses the meadow ..
The firewood keeping me warm in the hard months of Winter ..
I pay homage to the Summer rain ..
Give thanks in May before our pollinators every day ...
Pay respect to my water well on parched evenings ...
Most grateful indeed for every change of Season ...
Copyright February 5 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
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Durandus von Meissen Apr 2012
Sacred Sonnets
Such faith, conceived by truth-revealing trials
Would open up the way for sojourn hearts
Which, too long groaning, some contend the while
And fix not, pierced through with searing darts
Of cruel despite.  The back and not the front
Too much pursued, then turns away the thought
Which, rightly meek, could otherwise wax blunt
The plaint of sorrow, though not falsely wrought.
The vale they pass, and must, which set before
Is flood with tears of loss for grace remiss
Unkindly given, faithfully now born-
Both cheeks for smiting, doubly felt love's kiss.
Forbearing calls of tempted wrath, uncouth
They still the soul with love to love in truth.

Miners do not bemoan their lot or odds
Toiling amidst the mountains for the boon
Of rare and costly things, nor curse the gods
That one is later rich, one richer soon.
Attentiveness they hold who sooner reap
The treasure that's around them secret sown
While into every crevice careful peek
To pluck what heedless others pass unknown.
Life is not slack to proffer all the glee
Of finding underfoot their stainless wealth
If but the waking heart might, pious, see
The subtle vision slipped their soul in stealth.
A fool to Fortune's ways too tempted cling
As others own great price in common things.

What is a plowman’s good who does not know
To rend the fallow starts a noble work
And sluggard helper who rose not to sow
For early rains, and still the labor shirks?
All seasons come upon a certain time
Accounting naturally important ends
Then run together, pending to adjoin
And pass one into each toward that they tend.
So bides the heart, all dispositions moved
Proportionate to their respective toil
And meets the trials of reason, thorough proved
To blend experience for richer soil.
Such faithfulness lays hold upon the tares
And garners truth in joy of harvest tears.

The carpenters, with line and cornered rule
Perfect their plan, all purposes befitting;
Discerning every plane, they make it true
To need and art, nothing good omitting.
Time, space, and material, they well acquaint
To suit what in idea they have known
And do not reckon aimlessly to joint
The forms of care which discipline bestows.
Determining at first, their soul aspires
With upright means to prove a steady norm
In outward style, contracting the attire
To fit, more solid, ‘gainst the pending storms.
All ends appraised, no castle in the air
They raise integrity’s undoubted lair.

The shifting winds of glancing pride toss-on
The ship of fools ambition ere the port
Of youth is left, though life will not disport
With careless confidence and ****** throngs.
Awake you sleepers, grab onto the helm
Of discipline and keep a watchful eye
For them false prophets' quackery that o’er whelms
The halting reason; now, the trial draws nigh.
Set sail for deeper waters, brave the depths
Of judgment, yet retain a stern relief
'gainst piercing cynicism, which has cleft
Many strong hull upon the siren’s reef.
A hero braves the dark, where Dagon preys
To pluck the pearly gem from wisdom's lay.

Seeming and unseemly, like and dislike
The teeter and the totter is such play
Of mind and meaning, cause and mirrored sight
Which founding can confound the night with day.
The child is parent to the man while life
On loss is nourished; so a fusion rules
The universe inverse, returning strife
To compound allegory, deft endued.
Now what in words the wise of men contend
Consistent with or contra-wise contrived
Truth veers centripetal as spirit bends
The line’s division into circumscribed.
So Hermes’ message, as with salty might
Transforms the fixed in point of solving light.

The trials’ invocation always lends
Two ways to go, all faithless thoughts determined;
Another’s liberty of life extends
And once encompassed, all sure hope resounds.
What outward and destructive ways are there
In boasted things and ****** aspirations
Darkens careless souls that proudly bear
The cruelty of reckless estimations;
Though as an envoy of the light there’s one
That demonstrates a proven dignity
In all the world, illumined as the Sun
Their character’s sublime prosperity.
Such paragon of peace must ever live
In conquest of the other's death and sin.

As donning faces for the shift of things
Accommodation is the passing rite
That opens up upon the newest things
Where right or wrong, as given's, always nice.
What dogma won, in things of captured worth
Then fails for certain as both night and day
Impose fierce gauntlets which, ordained by birth
Initiates into humanity.
Whether comes fair or foul, truth ever is
Between what was, perhaps that which shall be
Where nothing good's received, nothing given
Except that proven by integrity.
More prudent hearts, in seeming-self discern
What loss to own, what gains to yet forgo.

No longer bothered in the waking hours
To vex the soul with thoughts of cruel reproof
They lighten every gloom with kinder bowers
And firm affections for shared primal youth.
Life’s promises they keep and sooner turn
On admiration of a sincere care
That judges not but, ever ready, learns-
What good or bad, by name, is common shared.
So being one within a true respect
They dare no more contend with right or wrong
Nor weary coming days with old regrets
But thank the night as harbinger of song.
At last to love in truth and constant live
By word of grace, their best of care to give!

Confessing nothing rash to vainly give
An estimation of life’s fleeting span
They overcome the world and constant live
In each, uniting, as is fit to stand.
Too soon, contesting banter comes about
On winds of contradiction, outward born
For inward wreck upon the teeth of doubt
As partial men from better self are shorn.
But owning what is due in right respect
Of station that sets all among the stars
So puny, comes a night to recollect
Those cares that found and folly each discharged.
Without more striving then, their way bestows
A humble truth, in love more plainly known.

So comes the proof upon transcendent will
To study every thought and whispered care
In what is sought and how may grace distill
The phantom soul; from private ways to bear
All things of good and evil in compound
As strange concoctions are at first the mead
Of sojourn ways, from ancient roots to bound
With vital links of continuity.
No star of vacant hope to glimpse at first
Where subtle intimations strike the mind
For sacred unction, urging on a birth
Through shadowed veils of self and misty kinds.
Once found in each, born by integrity
They compass perfect care to open up
The fount of golden youth while manhood’s key
Unlocks the treasures of salvific sup.
Such ripened grace of knowing, rightly heard
Stores up the nations, garnering the world.

A vision in the heart of Man, more true
To magnify the deed and, pure as gold
Proved equity of faith in each that holds
As dung all things which strife of pride once lured.
Allied and filling up the high measure
Of righteousness, with precepts born of love
It rectifies the will, drawing treasures
From Hade’s misty shrine and dank abode.
Thereby to light their lamps and truth reflect
The awesome wonder of life’s unity
While nothing of their tears to yet regret
Nor grant a loss to love's great sanctity.
Great mystery, though measured in the known
It rises, all in each and each in all!

Who knows what by this awful sight is spied
For proofs more sturdy, sought upon the word
To shape the justice of their dawning days
And lift to yet new life the palling world?
More subtle than the silent creep of time
It slips on by like whispers of a dream
To walk amidst the hustle and the grind
Of souls, too careless snared by cruel disdain.
Not here or there with proud insistency
Nor couched in dainty flirting of the mind-
A form of light and golden verity
Clothed in itself, itself a world sublime.
Substance of being, hope without a fear
This faith, indemnified by countless tears.

Ten thousand times ten thousand worlds employed
With weight and number, light and vast devoid
Before this fairest seat could faith enjoin
As heaven’s solar dame to the sublime.
Compressed within its bowels, the work's distress
From many tons of ore brings forth one stone
Which rare carbunculus the sage invest
With value, their beloved to adorn.
But this and all true wonder has not shown
What men and women may, in time, bequeath
As one pure breath of aurum spirit, born
To comprehend and compliment the rest.
Great agony has justified the odds
In consequence of Man, revealing God!
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Don Bouchard Apr 2014
Minos
King Minos,
Spited by the God of Oceans,
Hesitated but a while
Before poor Pasiphae's bull-headed son
Was penned inside the labyrinth,
And then, as if to throw away the key,
Inventor Daedalus and his dear son
Were for their work a prison tower fee'd.
But they grew wings, for as we know,
An inventor's work is never done...
If only Icarus had listened
And kept a proper place below the sun,
Breugel's painting would have lost
Its distant splashy focal point;
The plowman and the shepherd would
Have stood alone above a perfect sea.

Old Minos never had a chance,
And though the cunning Hunter,
(He, who found the man who
Made a string crawl curving
Through a shell behind an ant),
Had won... decided to disrobe
And take a dip...a foolish act
To choose when Daedalus
Would serve a hot revenge.

Daedalus, who knew the score,
Burned wood to make the water soar;
In vengeance vented spiteful wrath,
And cooked old Minos in his bath.
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John Milton
L’Allegro
Hence loathèd Melancholy
  Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian Cave forlorn
  ‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy.
Find out som uncouth cell,
  Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-Raven sings;
  There, under Ebon shades, and low-brow’d Rocks,
As ragged as thy Locks,
  In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But com thou Goddes fair and free,
In Heav’n ycleap’d Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To Ivy-crownèd Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as som Sager sing)
The frolick Wind that breathes the Spring,
Zephir with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on Beds of Violets blew,
And fresh-blown Roses washt in dew,
Fill’d her with thee a daughter fair,
So bucksom, blith, and debonair.
  Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and Wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on ****’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrincled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Com, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastick toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crue
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free;
To hear the Lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-towre in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to com in spight of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the Sweet-Briar, or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.
While the **** with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darknes thin,
And to the stack, or the Barn dore,
Stoutly struts his Dames before,
Oft list’ning how the Hounds and horn
Chearly rouse the slumbring morn,
From the side of som **** Hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Som time walking not unseen
By Hedge-row Elms, on Hillocks green,
Right against the Eastern gate,
Wher the great Sun begins his state,
Rob’d in flames, and Amber light,
The clouds in thousand Liveries dight.
While the Plowman neer at hand,
Whistles ore the Furrow’d Land,
And the Milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the Mower whets his sithe,
And every Shepherd tells his tale
Under the Hawthorn in the dale.
Streit mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the Lantskip round it measures,
Russet Lawns, and Fallows Gray,
Where the nibling flocks do stray,
Mountains on whose barren brest
The labouring clouds do often rest:
Meadows trim with Daisies pide,
Shallow Brooks, and Rivers wide.
Towers, and Battlements it sees
Boosom’d high in tufted Trees,
Wher perhaps som beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a Cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two agèd Okes,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savory dinner set
Of Hearbs, and other Country Messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her Bowre she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the Sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead
To the tann’d Haycock in the Mead,
Som times with secure delight
The up-land Hamlets will invite,
When the merry Bells ring round,
And the jocond rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the Chequer’d shade;
And young and old com forth to play
On a Sunshine Holyday,
Till the live-long day-light fail,
Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How Faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull’d the sed,
And he by Friars Lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
To ern his Cream-bowle duly set,
When in one night, ere glimps of morn,
His shadowy Flale hath thresh’d the Corn
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the Lubbar Fend,
And stretch’d out all the Chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And Crop-full out of dores he flings,
Ere the first **** his Mattin rings.
Thus don the Tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering Windes soon lull’d asleep.
  Towred Cities please us then,
And the busie humm of men,
Where throngs of Knights and Barons bold,
In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold,
With store of Ladies, whose bright eies
Rain influence, and judge the prise
Of Wit, or Arms, while both contend
To win her Grace, whom all commend.
There let ***** oft appear
In Saffron robe, with Taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique Pageantry,
Such sights as youthfull Poets dream
On Summer eeves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonsons learnèd Sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe,
Warble his native Wood-notes wilde,
And ever against eating Cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian Aires,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linckèd sweetnes long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that ty
The hidden soul of harmony.
That Orpheus self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heapt Elysian flowres, and hear
Such streins as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain’d Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth with thee, I mean to live.
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Antony Glaser Nov 2021
Plowman
Under the shade of the heavenly Magnolia
Just that once he jaded
Having noticed flocks of skylarks
venture abroad
The servant rain finds its path
And soon his hands separate the soil
Mother Earths' plowman
Her banished son
Continues his labour
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Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
rain & jazz
no other - a windowsill and an open window -
sitting on a folded leg and slouched
like a crow - i would be begging for it to rain -
no other music can capture rain -
safety net of all that sporadic improv. -
                      other other music - except jazz...
whether it be rain nibbling on the countryside
or the full-on cosmopolitan havoc of grey,
dust, grease, cement and rats and glass...
                 never mind: because i never thought
i'd say this...
                of the moderns... closely ruling out
wojciech kilar - for no particular reason other than
he's probably more known -
christopher young - since his hellraiser stint...
what's new - the revamped pet cemetary?
well... if christopher young was primo...
      soon to follow him... graham... plowman...
work on h. p. lovecraft adaptations...
                     horror as a genre...
                                the music wins me over...
however spectacular the visuals are...
                               if the music isn't bone grinding -
unsettling the nerves -
well... that's like pop music when it's raining...
i guess: oh i guess jazz can capture more feelz
when it comes: when it's raining...
when it's lazily sun-dazzling with the impression
of an "underneath" sizzling sensation -
or melting butter - or for that matter melting chocolate...
or adding splashes of cornflour made in water
to a sauce and watching it thicken...
this recipe i will remember by heart...
i will have to at someone point...
but this dhal was quite sublime...

   scrap book recipe...
          a man in a kitchen...
               and in hell... the devil's mastery...
almost like a chemistry experiment...

       half and half: masoor and mung dal... lentils...
kabuli chana (chickpeas)...
    a bay leaf...
              3 cloves...
  a tsp of cumin coriander turmeric
                     chilly powder and another of kashmiri
   chilly powder
                chopped tomatoes
  coconut milk...
            onion ginger garlic
                spinach
      gochugaru flakes coriander for garnish...
veg and chicken stock...
                          ghee...
butternut squash...
                    cayenne pepper (1 tsp)...
    i was looking for a pinch of asafoetida...
i knew it was in the kitchen...
    alas... also know as a substitute for those
vegan cults that don't include eating onions
and garlic... or perhaps just onions...
    cinnamon stick? no...
but three decent pinches of a homemade
garam masala...
  and yes...

   https://ministryofcurry.com/moms-garam-masala/
is the only spice blend...
   the russians can have their nukes...
the americans can have their nukes...
i have an arsenal of the following spices and...
i'm feeling... like i just had a manicure done...
the only garam masala:
asafetida, bay leaves, black peppercorns,
black cardamom, cardamom, cumin seeds,
(sorry, no black cumin seeds),
      cinnamon, cloves, cordiander seeds,
dried chillies, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds,
(mace? no mace)...
         nutmeg, poppy seeds, star anise...
turmeric...
          again: no stone flower...
well... that's almost covered it...
                it's not the recipe asks for black
mustard seeds... those i do have...

                   cult recipe and it says: who needs...
meat?! even i'm convinced...
god i do love a good steak tartar...
    anything ****** and oozing wriggly bits
of life - as tender and gelatin grizzly as a...
even the names: bleu... ooh... saignant...
  haha... medium: demi-anglais... what else?

the butchers rolling in their graves
when someone orders a steak: fini-bien...
                          or some other frankenstein of the kitchen...

coleman hawkins - the high and mighty hawk...
some guys were putting up a fence
for me and my neighbour - it only took 15 years
but who's counting - they were told to
cut out all the bushes and foliage in my garden...
so that they could get a straight line
and so the fence would be put up...
unlucky for my rosemary bush...

r.i.p. my rosemary bush...
        today i started to salvage the poor thing...
the newer shoots i placed in water for
a drink and hopefully 2 weeks from today
i might think about planting them back in
the ground... for the rest of the bush?
i had to freeze the rosemary...
all afternoon my fingers were scented with rosemary...
which is fine... when you're working
with a raw piece of lamb...
but i'm no walking and breathing and aching
lamb of god about to be hanging
on the cross...
                even through the soap...
an afternoon of my hands being heavily scented
with rosemary...

vivaldi can have spring and the other three
faces of "god"...
holst can have his mars and the other circle of hell...
but thank the high-flying-****
that jazz can capture a rainy day better
than that song: i'm only happy when it rains
by garbage...
            
  guess i'm not letting go...
         an active rebellion against classical music...
one jazz record after another and i can gravitate
to...ward... the entire e.p. being played...
none of that new wave harakiri diat l.p. scene -
much appreciated... but i always need to move
beyond the half-an-hour mark...

         then again: i can't see how jazz could
compensate for snow - snow on the exit format -
jazz doesn't - then again...
no, categorically...
                           if there's only a sly insert of drum...
no horns - the piano and some guitar -
  
   otherwise you can't go wrong with
joshua redman - back east...
         a modern classic - notably with zarafah...

speed-conversations - none clinging
to a cameo of a date...
                 fickle minded - always changing
the course of events that... nonetheless remain
intact on binding themselves to a blind will -
        
music and all these interpretations are my own -
too bad to see and have to work with
a cipher - what's behind this image -
what's behind that image -
at least music stands stark and shivering naked...
less chances to abide by some propaganda...

unless of course mathematics is to be given
the crown - i hardly think: one shouldn't really
think about music -
                one can never really fathom
the constraints and the escapees from these
constraints... these constant revisionary scribbling
over and skimming the orthodox:
brick-on-brick intricacies of: immoveable objects
being: nonetheless moved...

- i too am waiting for my libido to die off -
anytime soon... like right now...
no harem therefore "jazz hands" and the algebra
of "magic fingers"...
idle man and all that *** that could have been...
until that magnetism is steered off a cliff
of: not another tomorrow -
                    at least no ***** or *** doll upon
the horizon -
            no point getting intimate or personal...
only a few days back i found a weakness in
this exoskeleton -
standing in a shower... pouring running water
onto the back of my head...
i almost knelt and said my prayers from
the exhaustion of succumbing to this multiple-******
of nuance...
       right on the spot where
a higher evolution of a more, protruding occipital
bone: as i've heard it once before: being noted...
i'm waiting for my libido to **** itself off...
in the meantime no harem...
imagine my luck when it comes to
the wisdom served up by men like king solomon...
even by then:
this most exhausted man had
to settle for a swan's dignity in monogamy
with the queen of Sheba...

                 but it's hard to translate wisdom
when you have all the basic forebodings
already at your disposal... the harem will discover
***-toys and you will be...
the limp **** in the whole affair...

                 such hard-on feats of fear when it comes
to... two cakes too many
when all you've been asking for is, merely a slice...
jazz... i can't find
a clint eastwood in alcatraz...
or steve mcqueen in sagan...
               or witold pilecki in auschwitz...      
but i can find myself in jazz...
hummingbird or some, other, champagne flute
and that bothersome fly...
nothing against flies: everything against
mosquitos... i would **** those buggers with
the same joy of donning wool having
just sheered a sheep or two...

jazz and: the wriggling fish...
jazz and all the fish out of water...
i'd call them constipated ***** and lobsters
but... jazz and the wriggling fish...
jazz and smoking a cigarette to appreciate
the deaf centre point of night's culminations...
living close by to central london...
"walking in" and not feeling like
anybody important: or a tourist...

       if i wasn't a billy joel: i would most certainly
not want to be a bob dylan -
hard to be living the obscure with a cross
made up of iconography...

the applauded and the: billy joels' piano man meets
neil young's old man...
they shake hands and subsequently depart
where the crossroads begin, and end...

believe me when: i'm the last to be believed...
usher in a dozen penguins attired
to be... fizzy kosher dosh...
in all their napkins and bowtie-neck strangle 'em
into a hush of a bamboozle...

such the life the music the mathematics
of living in shackles - wriggly ol' ****** with
those improv. would-be-turns and...

how many words will it take for it to be clear...
i have nothing but rejoice at clinging
to my obscurity... primo amigo:
alea iacta est: too bad for me...
or too bad for my shadow...
                       faking being a gemini
in the horoscopes of fate and superstition...
shadow: mime out of the confines...

      these is my second chance at retaining
the crown of obscurity? is it?! is it?!

   to have to burden oneself with love...
akin to... well... if i were about to spoon her...
but no... i wanted to catch the 8 hour kipper....
but every time i would fall
to sleep... i'd fall asleep with a tarantula bite...
numb all over to one side...
because i was oh too willing to fall asleep
when clinging to her...
like a bracket fungus to trunk and core...
one side of me complete in numb...
which had a rubric of recitations
should all else not be true...

but *****! that slap in the face...
                             come to think of it...
i'd like something to eat...
less **** with... that could pinch me...
i'm starting to think that
being ganged up by a group of hyennas
is not such a bad way to go...
perhaps being mistaken for a tuna
when a shark attack is being
noted...
            hard to imagine
sharks or bears or lions as having
sadistic undercurrents to their day-in-day-out
beats...
  even sharks nibble but never gorge
and feast on... this cranium solid first and only
hope when it comes to god
not making mistakes when gambling...
the ******* roulette or a black jacks' "choice"
of cards...

i can't exactly "think" this out to appease
a gravitating en masse...
                       pour me another shot and
debackle! all in the faith and hope
of un-thinking thinking...
trying out this suction tenticle of the void...
replacing descartes' res cogitans with
res vanus... what is due: is due...

no more wisdom from me aged 34
as me aged 73... there's only rain and jazz...
i'm buying time...
concerning whether it would be even
remotely likely to appreciate jazz
when it's snowing... unlikely...
very much hell-bent unlikely...

      - who would have thought that peering
into an aquarium would have to,
become more entertaining that zombie-clad
watching a t.v....
what ever happened to the watching
a klepsydra... or the tick-toe-tightening
of seconds into minutes into hours...
dying from the skeleton diet of time
whenever catching-up: unaware with
the clock in the confines of:
old people not really...
no, not really, listening to coleman hawkins'
much of anything...

                     because this doesn't tease
the affections of the young...
like a trainspotting revamp might....
because there's, clearly no new dracula...
and there's no new: new....
                     i wait patiently like a salamander....
no easy picking no low hanging fruit...
no fatty boy'oh to matter...
         no leeching off the three-quarters
of                               the better part of the engineering
cohort that were behind
the manhattan bridge... or Malbork Castle...
and hands on hands: do touch...
the event horizon of a dead star...
                    in that: pulling fabric...
basic genesis... talking fire "misanthrope": "god"...
bushes outgrowing fungus when
it came to 1970s ***** flicks:
notably in fwench and italian...
                   prune the perm hair...
                             keep that afro on a leash!

these days ***** is half of the cure's nostalgia
and more...
onomatopoeia and...
    refining the contorts with painting...
and keeping the act on a hush...
               the lazy hands speaking
dozen **** cracks being discovered but
none being experienced...
bone the hand...
it's called a ****** just because
of oysters... it's called a ******
because of the clams and of the irises...
and because the tongue:
god... ever time i wanted it to exfoliate...
it's forever that timid tulip!

         what came of a ****** became a hand
and the cusp... and what would never
become a San Francisco needle hinge epidemic...

was anyone praying that
one direction would become the next rolling stones...
cougar: meow...
that **** jagger was going to be
the "reincarnated" harry styles?

           knock-knock... who's there?
a premonition... i.e. touch-wood...
base: i will require the wood to be touched
by bone - notably a crunch of the knuckle in how
the fist is formed / fathomed...

        otherwise known as the lap-lapping-dance-off
with a tongue wriggling in imitation
closure of a worm...
or a fighter for a boxing champ. contender...
belt-up... knot and noose down....
the new news is no: good skit...
i **** myself to fickle my shadow
whenever i see a hoopla or a trance inducing
recoil of the swinging dancing spare
of a: rope that's not leftover for
the dangling first come first served...

daydreaming zeppelins...
the day the elevated english man will fall...
and bring down the bowler hat with him...
touch the philosopher's stone and turn
that attache of good taste into an umbrella...
the same day i stop daydreaming
about zepplins...
will see me think of the anglo-saxon
as whittle brother... the younger Swabian...
and all part of the infuriated minor
Germany that found inkling to behave
like the nomad Yids...
and move... and move... and...
never the sort of people to conceive of a ship...
without also being receptive of carrying
an anchor!

then again...
                   monkey man albino and...
forever the one to follow the white rabbit back home.
Continue reading...
Lawrence Hall Nov 2021
Ten Knots along a Cord
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   Ten Knots along a Cord

                       A trewe swinkere and a good was he,
                       Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee

                                 -Chaucer’s Prologue

See the plowman walking home from the fields
He plods along with the pace of centuries
There is no haste, for time hardly exists
Only the seasons, rolling like cosmic tides

And in his hand, ten knots along a cord
To count each Ave as it passes his lips
And through his heart and hopes and gratitude
His soul secure along the links of being

See the plowman dreaming home from the fields
His feet upon the earth, his head among the stars
#rosary
Continue reading...
Randolph Llewellyn Wilson Mar 2016
My Prayer Before the Farmer ...
To the planter offering his vegetable harvest by the roadside ..
To the purveyor of fine laying hens I pray quick exchange for her tireless labor .. Morning  , Noon into night ..
A moment of thought for Dairyman , Plowman and Farrier ..
My invocation for abundant harvest , tranquil rest and picturesque sunsets  ..
Copyright March 17 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Continue reading...
Alex Goodrich Feb 2014
terminal
sometimes it'd come; a uniting word
something soft and almost unheard
others it was a thing felt
a need that swelled and couldn't be helped
city nights hinted by smothering black
hiding away where none could track
hours over coffee and somber tones of death
yet there was more life with each passing breath
every portion i tasted and i knew
and even now, i wish i'd never seen you
a thing far too sweet for a feast
and a bone not fit to be gnawed by a beast
it was only you for whom i'd kneel
and it was only you whom i sought to heal
if ever should you go the moon would fall
all would hush and slow to a crawl
even after every word your shadow will loom
and i feel frozen in sight of your doom
i know no words no prayers i could say
the will of your god will have its way
but still i cry as the plowman comes to reap
i will lay beside you as you go to sleep
cancer and exes
Continue reading...
Lawrence Hall Oct 2018
If we Respected Work...
We would

Ask a receptionist for her autograph
Gather in thousands in awe of linemen
Practice the carpenter’s hammer at home
Invite a mechanic to the White House

We would

Order as a keepsake a plumber’s last pipe
Post pictures of teachers writing lesson plans
Make recordings of a wise plowman’s words
Publish biographies of waitresses

We would

Envy the garbageman aboard his yacht
And the workers’ lifestyle that we know not
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Continue reading...
Randolph Llewellyn Wilson Oct 2016
The Forgotten ...
To the herdsman counting his flock in the moonlight
The plowman repairing his tractor by lantern- light
The wood splitter , the fence builder , framer and rail tender
Architects of frozen December morns
Unsung engineers , freight worker and brakemen
'Twould be a privilege indeed to sup cold beer with the countries heroes , privy to stories of hardship and raw weather days endured by these American patriots
Iron tooled with steel , the churning grist mill , diesel engine roar ,
black earth turned anew , billowing steam settled over valley floors
Masters of metal , brake and die , machine and anvil
The crack of the peen long before sunrise
'Tis the bailiwick of farmer and tradesman* ..
Copyright October 21 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Continue reading...
Ken Pepiton May 2020
A mused in life's dustbin
2020 - day 146

Monday, May 25, 2020
7:48 AM

A creed of mathematics and mud, said
in what may be
metemperical
utterance from the ghost of the late,
and likely,
no longer lamented,
Sir Leslie Stephen, author, and,
therefore,
authoritative voice in the matter
of his own mind.
He apologized for the state called
Agnostic, lacking gnosis, may I say,

I know more, in fact, if I count my access
to knowns,
along with my access to the sequence
of knowing;
I know more than any prominent literati
in the time before Google's
manifestation as an idea shaping tool.

What do I know?
I know how to use the Internet to learn,

in broad sweeps through the remains of
empires,
into the dustbin of history for which we stand,
ready,
as a nation,

to build new and more destrucively effective
petards.

Blow your mind, hoist, lift-off, on your own farts.

Passing wind,
did you smell it?

❖

Mental as opposed to spiritual,
hmmm

this will need some study...
a little think,
an imaginary journey,

from here to... where? Where,
or when,
if
we were to change the world,
as we know it;
say,
we did. Say we changed the world,

who would know?
Who would care? We have yet,
breath, and fuel, and functionality.

We have movement, and a grasping,
holding, using,
sense
a natural, from the womb, knack
for making a fist.

❖



Womb survivors of the world, unite.

Defined to the finest quarkish sublimnity,
we entangled creative
thoughts being spun into the wind
passing, rising
from bloated corpses,
we all may witness, as real as you may imagine...

in 2020, we have eye-witness visions made plain,
we have seen the bodies stacked in carts,
we have seen My Lai from the sky,
we can imagine

being there... but don't, I mean, Memorial Day is...

maybe, it is... evoking memory of madness,

how is war good? It is good for the greedy, no one else.

We watch our hero's die to stop the evil, then we watch
the bankers free the last Krupp cannon molder,
to spite the facts we can see, as seen at Nurnberg.

That injustice, was done in my name, if I believe I am
pluralized as we, the people who hold truth,

the Yanks, ye' know? Yankin' y'strang, stranger... did you
stumble into our historical records of all the good
war has done? Nay,
we came to remember peace,

in high definition resolution sharper than the
unaugmented human eye can detect,

see that guy's head, or his helmet, look close,
no head remained in the helmet,

but I knew the head the helmet was hoisted from.

I watched PFC. -name redacted - die,

-- did you know, did you learn, ever, the meaning
of being hoisted on one's own petard?

A petard was a bomb. Nothing fancy,
a bit of alchemical magi-knowing of laws yet to be

discovered in the rubble of guesses as to cause,

accusations of arrogance and hubris, combound to whys,

never examined, never lived out in vital awareness.

❖




quenching a flaming spirit, is ill advised...

but it happens,
all the time. A heart pouring hope
into a mind jumbled
with signals and signs and pleas;

stops, stutters, and aches for
more
meaning meaning meaning in the
tinkling bells and crashing cymbals.

Hope, ash of aspirations inspired
by

love, as a thing, a noun, not a verb.

Love is a verb. Not a thing, an act.

Indeed, done, love is easy to think wisely done.
No announcement is needed,

long after the tale is first formed,
the legend rises from resting in peace,

to give a lie an opposing force, not a war,

a flood.

A deluge of lusion, a seeing at augmentedus
resolutions into further and beyond,
all we can think, or ask
into life
dimensions

former-wise, formerly, unknowable, now

known, according to the pundits,
these are not the days of Lincoln,
craming laws into his head by firelight,

calloused digits flipping page after page
of proprietary rules governing

the white man's burden.

---
❖

Staunching the flow, of blood, particularly,

meant stopping the flow, usually
stopping it from
flowing out of course,
flooding
the plain, flat, seeming, surface of reality.

Reality not being as defined as we imagine, in ourselves.
This being the flow,
if we pay attention, focusing on a point,
fixing a line of sight to a distant thing, a star will do,
planets,
no, those won't do, you see, the planets, now we know,

the planets reflect light,
they bounce light back to our eyes, which we invariably miss

when our attention is owed to the habits we hold.
Our daily grind... growing, or surviving in hope

We guess at many next right or otherwise, standing,
based up on a pedestal, a riser,

lift up your head, egregious though you be,
easily seen, so
easily you see as far as I'm concerned, dis
cerned, re
fined to the innermost edge,

ground to a halt... pressing blade to ground to scrape
a living

plowman, plow me a furrow, for the flood.
Maker of ways,  form me a way to flow,
channel my worth to the dying seeds

scattered, so long ago, on the thread of time we ride behind.

❖


a bug, an insect, not an arachnid,
by leg count
class-ift, insect extremely delicate, what use
could this bug be to me,
a mayfly,
that I did pay it this attention?

Did I mention, no,
sequences in re
telling, consider starlight bounces from sunlight,

but reason and gravity suggest, those
waves of starlight intermingle
with sunbeams.

A mote in my eye may have bounced once from the moon,
as a made its point pinging a receptor some where behind

the window of my soul
to make a ligandary acceptence of influence, from the Greeks,
in an instant
Zeno, doncha know, decided, made a cut,

skience is the conscision, the cutting into bits, until

no further cutting may be done,
and we are dust,
at best.

Flakey humans. Homes to literal gazillions of mites,
hunting and gathering epidermal

flakes of us, digesting said flakes, into demodex *****

{demodex, face mites, are as old as **** sapiens}

as we are in didactic tic mode, ******* meaning from flakes
rubbed off during the itching ear phase

of dust mote formations, see

a mite eating the scales of our bodies, our subjective habitats,

where we hold our habitual rituals;
a mite eating those, fecates and defecates, fecation required,

in consequentialist thought, prior to defecation.

Fact or fiction? Science, as we know it at grade eight,
on the global scale of common knowledge,

science is what we are convinced we know in useful ways.
Knowledge is our opinion of

what we think we know. That is a guess. Not quite right, flow

past
the missed try, reach a next un ex spectated, un i magined
ic tic tic

time passing options, while a life away, or wait

wait and see, or come and see.

I say go. Where this river runs, reach that place,

get all salty, then
lay in the sun and evaporate. Ex sciere, rise, sublimated into ever knowing more,

scient-if-ic known knowns within the un gated narrative we occupy.

We live in an atmo-sphere, a bubble, with a core- inward pulling force

which rolls the rock down the hill, as me and Sisyphus spend a pleasant afternoon
watching all our effort play out...

❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖❖


forgive me if you already made all the links, I found the scient bits glittering in Old Norse skita,

science is ific in its will to be known truth holding, bogus science is willing to lie, for prestige.

skei-
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to cut, split," extension of root *sek- "to cut."
It forms all or part of: abscissa; conscience; conscious; ecu; escudo; escutcheon; esq­uire; nescience; nescient; nice; omniscience; omniscient; plebisc­ite; prescience; prescient; rescind; rescission; science; sciente­r; scilicet; sciolist; scission; schism; schist; ******-; schizop­hrenia; scudo; sheath; sheathe; sheave (n.) "grooved wheel to receive a cord, pulley;" shed (v.) "cast off;" shin (n.) "fore part of the lower leg;" shingle (n.1) "thin piece of wood;" **** (v.); shive; shiver (n.1) "small piece, splinter, fragment, chip;" shoddy; shyster; skene; ski; skive (v.1) "split or cut into strips, pare off, grind away;" squire.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit chindhi, chinatti "to break, split up;" Avestan a-sista- "unsplit, unharmed," Greek skhizein "to split, cleave, part, separate;" Latin scindere "to cut, rend, tear asunder, split;" Armenian c'tim "to tear, scratch;" Lithuanian skiesti "to separate, divide;" Old Church Slavonic cediti "to strain;" Old English scitan, Old Norse skita "to defecate;" Old English sceað, Old High German sceida "sheath;" Old Irish sceid "to *****, spit;" Welsh chwydu "to break open."
This began when I noticed science is from the same root as all those old words for post digestion of chewed up stuff.
#dusty #trail
Continue reading...
Keith W Fletcher Jul 2016
Let it rain on me
Right now my days are long and hard
As I plow through these unfurrowed fields
Of my life
Where nothing has grown for so **** long
And as I look back with each turn I make
I see the beginning of growth
In what will be the flowering lush beauty
Of loves boundless bounty
The endless  beauty and ecstasy
I may be the plowman
And the Earth may be our lives
You are the rain that sustains
Those seeds that we plant together
A Living Color portrait
In this future yet to be
I will stand in that rain forever
In order to maintain and sustain
That same life-giving growth
Let it rain let it rain
Let It Rain On Me
Continue reading...
tïrïngõ Mar 2018
the rabbit
I wonder what the rabbit sees
when she passes through my backyard
garden. Catholic eyes that have canonized
nature’s wild mane
of vulcan brush and misty rain
does she think my sunflowers are just as beautiful?

and the rolling prairies of my
domesticated bend of the turnpike
are they just like the valleys she has
foraged through, beside the
shivering streams and
creepycrawling things, I
wonder if my nature is enough for her own

is the ant hill in my backyard garden still
sweet as the labor of the mountainspine
makes you sweat, admire the
dappled blueberries and
dark deer droppings
side by side, I once ate the deer’s own by accident and
I couldn’t tell the difference

but she is still just a rabbit and
has only seen the grocer’s slivered aisle of the world, she
hasn’t heard the wolf cry to the
violette moon
(god’s own thumbnail, mama used to say), or
smelled the dogwood in April
heard the mourning-song of the morning humpback while
the plowman’s humble dinner stays
salted by his moiled earthsoiled toilsweat
cried in the summershine of noontime Arizona rising and
laughed into the Amazon’s hair
stood tall on the moors, stood tall and faced the
edge of the world
kicked up the fertile dust of the African enterprise or
powdered her frosted nose alongside crystalline Mongols, no
she is just a rabbit, and I want to tell her all the secrets
Gaea has yet to murmur, low
but she is just a rabbit, and she sees my backyard garden
this wide world
and that is enough, for her own
#pastoral
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2020
tenchu / ghidorah / ninja scroll / urotsukidoji
i'm only ever after... a cushioning
pillow worth of rest...
to mind the old ghost...
the new shadow...
a jung and his matchstick play-dough
of ego...
an evelyn waugh an edward
hopper... hardly a...
last bearable breath of loitering
empire... and pride...
and... in this language...
the viet-cog-and-cong sort of...
ambush! in... the vicinity of...
the semi-detached jungle
of... there's a name for that sort
of enterprise...
     pride from the "revision" of
empire... when last awake...
the hitch-hiker borrowed from
pearl habour... godzilla loop-holes...
sorry... no... no soppy story...
the connells: 74 / 75...
   kid growing up...
   the beastie boys...
always and forver...
godzilla contra ghidorah...
beastie boys: inter-galactic...
   urotsukidoji ****: whipped cream...
tow: ties...
   this grieves the sentance of
a hong-kong handover...
            come hiroshima...
nagasaki... chernobyll..
                        new advent revision
of... snap-shot auschwitz!
hiroshima: like... blind... *******
ride of... the arbeit macht frei:
because...
in a land of only workaholics...
drinking is neither a desired nor
a way to bypass...
even the huxley argument for alternatives
doesn't work...
miracles or cobwebs...
tarantulla bread winner...
since... the web spinner is...
the loitering... grief of...
a da vinci whimp: waiting for a pope...
pauper the seventh...
art is best provided...
when it is matching...
a... patron!
                  grief that one might have
to be wedded with...
a plot of argument:
a race baiting bride...
if she was a kenyan chic-choc-flick...
a *** "parisian" porcelain...
a thai suntan of squint: and lay-the-mon's'dayz...
on suit: and off...
           i'll call her new delhi...
and... black cardamom...
and i'll her her cinnamon...
i'll call her kalachiri! i'll call her...
kashmiri zenith tease: nibble... bite...
piquant...
                    i will... ****... anything...
that... moves...
half of pakistan is left with...
a mongolian surname...
KHAN...
and Baghdad pretends to not be...
because... there's no JoJo: no new:
Baghdad is the "new" Istambul...
          
all our... cherished parodies of time...
the Turk is somehow...
the Angevin...
        tuba büyüküstün?
                    as one might cite...
a "bit too beautiful" for her...
              said beauty... and then...
hardly... the crevices... to conflate
the understanding of limbs...
this is enough...
longshanks... skinned...
             looted: the crux and scandal...
thus versed: and best: rooted:
oak;
        to have made attempts
to cry... is to have...
been unable... to... coerce
a conversion of laughter into...
an... exhilaration... thus... at best...
to cry... is to have played...
token... poker... mamluk... here is to...
being converted... owning...
a foreigner's own... more...
prominent... this... english... grief and
sorrow and rubble...
dickens! is to be prized above
shakespeare in the realm
of teaching children the language!
i will own this language more prized
than by those born into it...
that i have no name...
that i am akin to the mamluk
and the janissary...
                      convert: who to conquer?!
the king in yellow - the myth of reciting
in greek: famed:
how the h'americans discovered europe...
somehow...
    graham plowman...
in reverse: the h'americans were always
about to: "about to"... revive...
and... recite... regression...
find "old" europe: from within...
the confines of... "new" h'america...
like... poached egg meets... scrambled...
and... tickled ****: ******* *** master!
vegas lost ****-and-edges! *******-pusher...
saint-bite! saint-****!

and all that... saint stephen with a rose...
h'america... the forgotten...
h'elvegen... you are the rite:
for the ripenning of...
whatever... cluster **** worth
of autumn!
Continue reading...
matthew scott harris May 5
Brief Mane n' Tail shampoo tall (tell) tale
Living social amidst
crime infested urban jungle
bumping uglies cheek to jowl
analogous fate being housed in jail
escape room of great outdoors
spurred subject matter in question
to journey to hinterlands
far from madding crowd
of Fort Lauderdale
woodsman ever watchful for Centaur

the body and legs of a horse
and with the head,
arms, and torso of a male
equipped with crossbow as scare tactic
shaft piercing flesh
no worse than nine inch nail
vehemently decried nasty,
short and brutish beastie boys
Greek mythological character
come to earth as animal savior
considered louts unfairly advantageous

killing wildlife as deal breaker
for uber twittering overscale
trespassers slaying innocent creature
no matter game good n plenti
eco consciousness mindedness
prompted inner conflict to prevail
as ace archer held taut
likened to nock fletched arrow in quiver
or shaking dandering quail
caught in carnivorous crosshairs,

where hunter doth regale
and remember to embellish maxim
one bird in the hand
worth two in the bush
opportunistically praises quarry
as divine intervention
after heavens he did intently surveil
Brief Mane n' Tail
shampoo tall (tell) tale
as Jonah felt when he got
swallowed by a whale.

Once upon a time
in a previous life of course,
anonymous wordsmith tour de force
yours truly (me)
remembers being a horse,
the handsome fine companion
of one Norwegian bachelor farmer,
who lived near Lake Wobegon,
which Minnesota enclave
analogous to Old Norse

country, anyway while
subsequently reincarnated
as beast of burden animal
(said steed synonyms
courtesy Roget's Thesaurus),
with flowing and glistening mane
and tail cuz lovely and neighborly lass
regularly shampooed former and latter,
nevertheless, I escaped captivity
and found myself in a fate far worse.

In present incarnation
shackled (née yoked
like an oxen to a plow)
manned courtesy Piers Plowman
to husbandry duties
after pledging troth and wed
as generic bipedal hominid thoroughbred
**** sapiens punk rocker,
I plod and tread
along boulevard of broken dreams,

fast as greased lightning, I sped
but these spindleshanks
ain't quick enough,
now as an old enfeebled
gentleman well read
luscious brown locks
adorn noggin of me Mister Ned
existential crisis offset
washing hair (applying
Mane n' Tail shampoo

the only pride and joy)
a wishy washy talking head
until these lovely bones become dead,
which cremains of min
slated to get dispersed and scattered
to the four winds
where ashes will be absorbed
buzzfeeding courtesy Horse Chestnut
purpose driven life
covering, functioning, and incorporating
self analogous to bedspread.
Continue reading...
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2020
What he told me
He told me patience is a virtue
Though he had not read
Piers Plowman

I agreed
And we proceed
To practice here and now man

He believes Donald Trump
Wants to eliminate his race

I believe he is correct
Trump's a ******* disgrace

The Americans are racist
Though often they don't know it

Just visit one of their prisons
That will surely show it

So we play basketball
Deep into the night

One of us is black
One of us is white

He beats me 17-15
That last 3 - What a sight!
Continue reading...

— The End —