"rakes" poems
Let me tell you about something I saw the other day,
when I was out walking through a field of hay.
The night was quite pretty, the air crisp and clear,
when I suddenly encountered a cat who was drinking a beer!
I walked a little farther and encountered some mice,
sitting around a card table, all playing dice.
The mice looked quite serious, they all dressed like thugs,
I was dumbfounded, and simply stared down from above.
Then I saw something that completely blew my mind,
it was a variety of animals, dancing in a conga line.
For hours and hours and hours they danced,
more animals joined in, even deer came to prance.
This party was larger than any I’d seen,
a couple of badgers were even smoking something green.
“Innocent” deer were snorting lines off of snakes,
and a couple drunk farm dogs were fighting with rakes.
A cat and a mouse were sitting in a barn,
entirely too drunk, they took turn telling yarns.
From across the field, you could hear an owl retch,
while a gaggle of geese slurred “Benny and the Jets.”
Sheep laughed, “Bahaha!” while dancing on tables,
the horses were getting it on in the stables.
This party was crazier than any I’d attended,
a pig even ended up losing an appendage.
As the sun came up, things started winding down,
all the cows went home, and the "Keg King" took off his crown.
I took this as my cue, it was time to depart,
so a couple mice and I hitched a ride on a farmer’s cart.
"Sayonara!" I yelled, "It's been lots of fun!
Everybody get home safe, try not to hurt anyone!"
But enough about me, let's talk about you.
That was my weekend, what did you do?
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 11:55 PM UTC
Infinitely and often nightly but very quietly
I creep into the garden shed
and make a bed among the flower pots
where those dainty blooms with purple spots
spot me
and open up their eyes to see who sits among the rakes and spades
and somewhere in those dappled glades
my eyes will rest upon a cur-ved apparition and entirely of an auto responsive
suggestion
I will greet her with a midnight smile taped on my lips
and when my heart has done its forty skips and my body settles down
I invite her to come a little close and sit beside me by the oak tree
she
smiles in a light to brighten any night and any day I know would be proud to say
go with the moment it is yours to own
but on my own trapped in a shady place
I face the fact that
this place in the garden shed is only pictures in my head
and I retreat
beat it back indoors where the thunderous snores of all my many days
come back to haze me in some juvenilish way
it's the way of it
it is the way and I have bitten off more than a piece or two
and flown too close to sit upon the heat
of the sun
burned my bridges
burned my ***
and never learnt to hold my tongue
but it is the way
and one day the way will become oh so clear
the potting shed that's in my head will disappear
and in its place
the face I look to meet
will greet me
deferentially I shall shape my tongue to fit around the words I want to say
It is and always has been
this way.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 5:00 PM UTC
Destruction leaves a pile of garbage
Heinous deeds which rakes up a stink
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 1:00 AM UTC
Distant blue field
further, still the dawn
warmth of day, falls away
disappears into a
fragrant piney forest
a path - twine and twigs, mossy laid
soft steps, of hoof prints made
in tunnels wooded, dimly lit
gray lichen amid the moss
raindrops magnified, gazing through
boletus spongy staining blue
fat berries, salal and thimble red
sparrow rakes his nesting bed
when all the light has gone away
night slips silent into another day.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
Nails in pocket
For future fastening
Of repellence on wood
Legs twisted, stiff, that
Forgot how to follow
In any other way than
Swaying in the wind
Hay hair shining in
Sunlight less every time
The dustbowl hits
Rags around lumps,
Stakes, rakes
Make for inadequate
Facade of waking
From afar well placed,
At ease, maybe
Somewhat untidy,
But balanced, stable
At a distance, listening
One might even hear
A raspy voice whispering
Wind to wood,
Promises of movement
Mistake a hollow stare
For vigilance
But with senses obsolete
Inertia well-rewarded
Mere being never sufficed
But for here and now
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 11:32 AM UTC
A scarecrow
Tired and pale
Rakes himself up
After the squall
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
Headland and Flounders
drift alongside the edge
and what is excluded
bitter vetch, its famine vouch.
Life was then hewed
on a cusps of Moon,
their points return as
Libertines and Rakes.
Born from the same ideal
with choice to inform
and saddle the consequences.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 3:07 PM UTC
The thunder rakes across my sky,
as my twins lay still and die.
The rain pours down in blood red drops,
and all my world cries and stops.
The lonely wind howls low.
The rivers swell then rage and flow.
The unicorn runs a race of time,
to return to my sky a ray of sunshine.
The wolf paces close not leaving my side.
All my creatures hold together my life.
The day dawns black and gray.
The kittens lay still they do not play.
The butterflies that flutter by,
their colors fade as deeply they sigh.
All the world shutters and quakes.
The icy cold waters run black.
The flowers close and turn their backs.
No swan trumpets, nothing is heard.
Silence has swept over every bird.
The dragon hatchlings sense the need,
so the heal my heart they'll plant a seed.
A seed in which to their joy will grow,
a happiness I'll come to know.
They know I shall never forget my boys,
yet I must live on and find other joys.
The owl turns the clock of time.
The only ease to sorrow of my kind.
The animals all stay close and wait to see,
if I will again open the gate.
For now they all feel my pain.
Me standing in the blood red rain.
Written in the hospital, the night I lost my twin baby boys. This is the 5th passage in the My World series, perhaps I will post more if people enjoy them.
©Crystal Erickson 6/15/00
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 8:58 PM UTC
Girl turns three on a homemade cake
She had candy balloons and plastic grass bits
Toy princesses and marscapone rakes
And mom burnt her finger because she forgot the mitts
Girl turns five on a store bought cake
This time it was shaped like jack and jill
And she wondered if it was a fake
It was the month mom got ill
Girl turns seven on a cupcake
And mom could barely get up let alone bake
Dad taught her baseball that week
She peeped at her parents through the little door creak
Mother.
Other.
Her.
Girl turns nine on a chocolate bun
Mom gave her blessing through the grave
That was the year dad knew no fun
And they kept telling her to be brave
Girl turns eleven on a self made cake
Mom was back but her ******* were fake
Dad was googly eyed, yes
He neglected that his baby was depressed
Girl turns thirteen on a seven layered cake
It was all this posh she couldn't take
This year new mommy and daddy started fighting
And she'd turn up the music and dim the lighting
Girl turns sixteen on a birthday card
This year, dad started drinking
And life felt hard, really hard
Deep down she knew she was sinking
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 10:07 AM UTC
Barricades and Floundering
drift alongside the edge
and what is specifically excluded?
cantankerous vetch,
its bitter wiles.
Life rough-hewn
on a cusps of Moon,
whose dust return as
Libertines and Rakes
Born from the same lumière
with moral relativism to confound
and saddle such consequences.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 8:04 AM UTC
The Taste of Bitter Grapes
November 1, 2012
The taste of bitter grapes is what they do to me.
Do they ever wonder why people are so strange?
Of course not, for they are usual as in their ordinary lives.
I make a splash, and bring tidings of vitality.
Only to flop like a fish, utterly uninterested, outside their tiny ponds.
I chomp chomp on their hearts.
Tug on their brains with my toll on their souls.
But what's in it for me?
They become another casualty, and then nothing more than my inventory.
Maybe this hole was a birth defect.
Something like a mole?
I don't really want to know.
To get on with my days, I just need it not to show.
So, solid snow of this barren baron.
Please excuse these hoes, and the rakes too.
They didn't realize they were just a sideshow.
The main attraction is to never possess any true attraction and see how these things go.
Until I finally find my first true delight.
This is my plight.
I take another bite.
Of these bitter grapes.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 7:20 PM UTC
The poet tries
with her words
to create something new
something hitherto unconsidered,
unthought, unspoken
She rakes the dirt for language
that is inimitable and rare
Fighting her way out of
prosaic platitudes
Searching deliriously for
a sharp-edged jolt of ingenuity
that will
awaken and inflame
In this great pursuit of something
clever
to say,
she overcompensates,
birthing a few stanzas
of exaggerated hogwash that inspires
more dismay than satisfaction
Out the window
her poem goes
A little crumpled ball of melodrama
and stale cliché
Then the poet sits in silence
smoldering with displeasure
wanting nothing more than
to finally write something that
works
It is when, radiant with disappointment,
she relinquishes her fantasy of excellence
that the true
poem begins
With rosy wings and
eyes like screaming bullets
it sails forth to proclaim
to declare
to profess without apology
or contrition
the wildest truths of her
soul
It is out of this realm of
deflation and defeat that
true originality is bred
Just a murmur at first, just a glint,
but listen, listen as
it swells into an exquisite roar
and watch,
watch as it rises from
the decay of the past
to flare
in a new light
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 8:36 AM UTC
She said she'd pinprick your watershed
Leave alone , it must be bled
A cold and somewhat silent shiver went through you
She tossed your hair with fingers flared
Before she rapes your lips she says she cares
And cautions ,"I am no where near through with you ."
She rips your shirt , rakes your skin
Over and over again
Till blood trickles down upon you
She licks you dry
And praises the sky
saying, "God is jealous of you guy ."
Then she sits upon your lap
Knocking off your tip top hat
And throws a ****** to you
The first and third lines rhyme
She takes away your time
Makes you scream in agony and ecstacy
All of mercy . , .
More on mercy . , .
Tasting pain . . .coated in pleasure
The memory lingers
Burning like a scorpions stinger
And now your mallingered aren't you
The second and fourth are lines of choice
Developed rhythm for the course
And you grade your decisions running through you
She left you dead , hurt your head
And then she fled
Tossing your heart into the river
Your grateful that you live
but still you go on and grieve
Or at least wished you did
As you are trying to relate
All you do is quake
And start to uttering
"All on mercy . . .
More on mercy . . .
Have mercy . . .on me ."
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 3:31 AM UTC
Eliza! what fools are the Mussulman sect,
Who, to woman, deny the soul’s future existence;
Could they see thee, Eliza! they’d own their defect,
And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance.
Had their Prophet possess’d half an atom of sense,
He ne’er would have woman from Paradise driven;
Instead of his Houris, a flimsy pretence,
With woman alone he had peopled his Heaven.
Yet, still, to increase your calamities more,
Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit,
He allots one poor husband to share amongst four!—
With souls you’d dispense; but, this last, who could bear it?
His religion to please neither party is made;
On husbands ’tis hard, to the wives most uncivil;
Still I can’t contradict, what so oft has been said,
“Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil.”
This terrible truth, even Scripture has told,
Ye Benedicks! hear me, and listen with rapture;
If a glimpse of redemption you wish to behold,
Of ST. MATT.—read the second and twentieth chapter.
’Tis surely enough upon earth to be vex’d,
With wives who eternal confusion are spreading;
“But in Heaven” (so runs the Evangelists’ Text)
“We neither have giving in marriage, or wedding.”
From this we suppose, (as indeed well we may,)
That should Saints after death, with their spouses put up more,
And wives, as in life, aim at absolute sway,
All Heaven would ring with the conjugal uproar.
Distraction and Discord would follow in course,
Nor MATTHEW, nor MARK, nor ST. PAUL, can deny it,
The only expedient is general divorce,
To prevent universal disturbance and riot.
But though husband and wife, shall at length be disjoin’d,
Yet woman and man ne’er were meant to dissever,
Our chains once dissolv’d, and our hearts unconfin’d,
We’ll love without bonds, but we’ll love you for ever.
Though souls are denied you by fools and by rakes,
Should you own it yourselves, I would even then doubt you,
Your nature so much of celestial partakes,
The Garden of Eden would wither without you.
1.8k
Like old
mean beetles,
like old
men in battle,
like egos: solid anvils,
like families: lethal weapons,
like these: them,
begotten sons
who begat daughters
of a land, of a bordered plot
on the globe, the dirt,
the house, the property
which begot
them
both,
these two
bitter enemies
from two
separate places,
furiously blaze,
as the time
for darkness,
is far
from arrived.
And the sun
quakes,
in its heat
rippling sights
and
knocking particles,
which deter the next
knocked,
and which enforce
the continued sensation of
warmth
continued,
of aversion
continued,
rising,
screened,
for its impeccable quality,
against
nobody in
general or
specific
to announce, or to gain
against
consequences, which are
soothsaid
in time,
nullified.
Partners afflicted will be less opportunistic
and more egalitarian,
but are sworn,
like the sun,
against the monotony,
of repetition,
of indistinct days;
like these:
them,
the enemies,
they
are
engaged,
aged,
unteachable
and
spoiled.
They are always
immersed
in
vexed
states,
always in competition.
Hope
is
the
souls
united
never again
as much
as the static,
single dimension,
alone,
impeccable,
impossible,
for its possibility
is drawn by He
who
spews forth
lumens
next to card sharks and Amazons, knowing these
will have to suffice, having no escape
from the projected
source
of energy.
The metal heads
of garden rakes,
weapons
thrown
at devils
in the sweltering heat
of hell,
the Inferno
that holds a
first-person
point of view,
a dream, alongside
superheroes, allied,
but who are,
nevertheless,
without their unique
and exceptional powers,
pros and willing deviants
from the celibacy,
the weight,
the unoriginal paint
that collides
in
each
stroke,
making what
appears
null,
and the array
but one,
and supposed,
so that then
are the weary
and soulful mergers
which corrupt
and meander throughout,
polluting,
as
it
were,
the tranquility,
the wrenched service,
of the destined
machine,
of a million
trajectories,
homespun threads,
woven
into
a
million
miserable
microfibers,
unanswered
queries
that were
held back
in
fear,
and
were
never
asked,
and remain
even
now
sorry.
Jan 17, 2010
Jan 17, 2010 at 7:49 AM UTC
If misery was a gift
she had Christmas every day.
Her clouds had clouds
and she traded the silver linings
for an overstock of black mold.
She once had been happy,
but peace never challenged her
the way chaos did.
Now, the only thing she loves
is tending her garden of discontent
with **** rakes and spades
for 50 shades of defeat.
If she achieved every goal on her checklist
she kept Einstein’s,
Hawking’s,
and Jesus Christ’s in her pocket
to remind her of the insufficiencies.
She complains that she has no friends
and assures it
with a magnifying glass of faults.
The profile for her perfect man
is rigid. So rigid
that even God didn’t qualify.
If she found a glass half-full
she’d grumble that it wasn’t Cognac Champagne.
She has long since forgotten
the important thing -
the power of light.
For light heals
light brings hope
light always dispels darkness
unless YOU become an eclipse
between it and the world.
[VERSION 2.0]
SHE FORGOT
If misery was a gift
she had Christmas every day.
Paper and bows
she’d wrapped herself,
hand signed cards
To: Me, From: Me
every box opened
then rewrapped
and opened again
with tattered Scotch-tape scars
unsalvageable
like the excitement of a child
who found her hidden presents
in the closet 10 days
before Santa would come.
And clouds! How did you know!?
Gray, snowless,
pointless holidays
hopelessdays
all her days.
Her clouds had clouds
and she had traded the silver linings
for black mold.
They always fit her just right.
She once had been happy
but peace never challenged her
the way chaos did.
So she labors passionately in
a garden of discontent
nurtured year-‘round
but always growing winter
watering resentment and acrimony
with bitterness,
drawn from a barrel full
of moldy cloud rain.
Regardless of what she might achieve
she reminds herself
of others doing more
comparing checklists with Jesus Christ’s.
If she had fed the 5000,
she would still be
lacking the crucifixion.
You see, nothing grows
by accident in a well-kept
garden
including withered friends whom
she weeds, though beautiful
assuring they will never be more.
Those she doesn't pluck, she bakes
under her magnifying glass of faults.
She knows nothing of content
whether love, or God,
or a half-goblet of possibility.
If she found a glass half-full
she’d grumble that it wasn’t Cognac Champagne.
She has long since forgotten
the important thing –
the power of light.
How it heals and grows
hopeful sprouts, green
through struggling soil.
Light always dispels darkness
unless YOU become an eclipse
between it and the world.
When you cast your own
shadow
it’s easy to forget
the way flowers
grow back on their own
every spring
the way the clouds
sometimes break
unexpectedly.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 1:37 AM UTC
I was stripped of my freedom
Brought to this bearing land
With a glass of water and an open plain,
Left to die.
But I shall rise again.
I have been beaten with horse whips,
Handles of hoes, rakes, and shovels,
But I revealed no pain
When I was left to die,
Oh yeah, I shall rise again.
I’ve slaved upon many fields
Picking cotton, beans, potatoes and tomatoes
While being washed by the rain.
My spirit was left to die.
But I shall rise again.
I was tooken away from my mother
Like one takes a pig from a sow.
I screamed like I was insane,
My heart left to die,
But I shall rise again.
I witnessed my brother being hung from ropes,
My father getting shot many times over.
With their blood, the ground was stained,
Alone, I was left to die,
But I shall rise again.
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 10:34 PM UTC
I wear my heart on my sleeve because I don't really like it much myself.
You can imagine me trying to brush it off like a spider or some demonic beetle, I hope that imagery makes you smile.
And if you feel how I do
Let us run
Fast
Real fast
And maybe our hearts will unhinge and fly away so as to mix in with the autumn leaves.
Now imagine them falling softly like angels with their wings clipped
as dad rakes them into the trashcan.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 1:56 AM UTC
Recollections by the window
darkness at the door,
a spent cigarette,
a dried up memory bank-
a laptop lying purposefully in the grass.
in between the moment is the event
The wood is riven by foxes
whimpering with cloven paws
the newly accommodated ******
rakes up a new home
the water vole scurries into the infested water
in between the moment is the event
reproduced in the computer
action and moment have ceased,
action and intent no longer connected
time and thought perpetually adjusted
hollow rain signifies emptiness
a blank screen eternity.
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 2:07 PM UTC
Hate me. Why not take an arm off?
Maybe my arm's already gone and missing.
Maybe tonight's the night I won't
wake from sleeping.
Shame as pestilence incarnate
rakes my beating heart and brain.
Nails as sharp as shards of memory.
I ingest the scent of corpses in a
cold storage adorned with limbs and organs,
underneath the floor of that burned
out/burned in periphery beneath the rain.
Sprang up again, arose in sweat,
toward the toilet. Some things never change.
Will this never change?
Hard jobs **** up my night,
and I can't rest in day.
Hard jobs **** up my day,
and I can't rest through night,
but I cannot stay awake.
What came before comes now,
becomes the future, turning loops.
The present keeps pace steady, only to
slide the Earth below me to prove
Some things never change.
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 4:42 AM UTC
Spare no lament for the maple leaves
that hail their impending fall
with blazing gold and scarlet concerts
bright as Christmas brass in marble halls.
How bold their radiant hymns resound -
mute to the sweatered ones below
whose treble scraping rakes -
raise smoldering pyres of the fallen.
Steamy plumes from cocoa mugs
blend with burning oak and maple wisps
as rakers chant their own sweet airs,
“The colors surprised this year,
didn’t think we’d had the rain.”
So spare no lament for the maple leaves
whose jubilant anthems,
raised beneath the harvest moon,
herald their fall with rainbow alleluias.
November, 2006
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 6:15 PM UTC
Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
His moods are storms that frighten and make glad,
His eyes were made to capture women's hearts.
Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings
An olden song of wine and clinking glasses
And riotous rakes; magnificently flings
Gay kisses to imaginary lasses.
Alfonso's voice of mellow music thrills
Our swaying forms and steals our hearts with joy;
And when he soars, his fine falsetto trills
Are rarest notes of gold without alloy.
But, O Alfonso! wherefore do you sing
Dream-songs of carefree men and ancient places?
Soon we shall be beset by clamouring
Of hungry and importunate palefaces.
1.5k
***Autumn is icumen in,
With all its tricks,
Its treats and whims.***
I can't mourn
Summer's passing;
Those days
Of idle slumber.
Summer suns
And midnight moons,
The silhouettes of June;
Holiday highs,
Mad July;
The robust garden
Lust of August.
I won't.
Autumn air
Affronts my senses,
The Arctic cool
Dips and rules.
The moss has left
The trees;
Arthritic twigs
Let lose
The leaves.
Autumn is icumen in
Autumn,
With its foils
And foibles,
Rakes us in
With harlequin sins,
And all its
Wherewithal.
Embrace your fall.
Winter is icumen in
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 8:02 AM UTC
Falcon rise— yellow racing eyes,
Blue wraith that rakes the skies,
Never has one fared such beauty,
Airs naught wholly bright as thee.
Is there a kneel for end of days—
Songs, deeds for those who prey?
Is there light breaking pied wings,
Or is heaven overlord to all things?
Sun spots feathering coated crest,
Talons top spires mountain breast,
When rivers of the wind fail all fowl,
What grace and splendour in a cowl?
Is there a psalm in the wailing winds,
A hymn that carries all innocent sins,
Or a fable, blue as stupendous skies,
A truest place where redemption lies?
The sea slides with lost ocean birds
And blue wings coast, row unheard,
Edging the skies with razors' tinge,
Seeding the immortal spark begins.
Falcon rise— yellow racing eyes,
Blue wraith that rakes the skies,
Never has one fared such beauty,
Naught airs wholly bright as thee.
— after William Blake
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC