"rhubarb" poems
spring planting, spring harvesting, spring garlic
One of the great joys of having a job in agriculture
is to think days, weeks, even months ahead,
One of the great joys of having a job in poetry,
like a fireman, a patient planter of love,
you wait to be called,
then becoming by being,
part of an all consuming burning
come spring, take advantage of the cool, wet weather of spring
to put in multiple crops of peas and lettuce, also a great time
to get your perennial vegetables,
like asparagus and rhubarb, started
the planting cycle is not an either/or,
come harvest thy labored fruits,
nine crops to harvest come March,
kale, pick leaves as needed,
leeks, best left in the ground
and harvested as needed,
parsnips, purple sprouting broccoli,
rhubarb, spring cabbage, spring cauliflower,
and of course, my personal fav,
Spring Garlic
Garlic, like like love, is generally planted in the fall,
before the frost and harvested the following late summer.
But from March to May,
once the ground has truly thawed,
the young lover plants, spring garlic or green garlic,
can be harvested.
it’s a long bus ride to Western Canada
where the garlic spring has come,
ain’t complaining lots of time to write foolishness
and plant a few good bus poems in northern ontario
and even michigan,
the window slides, and the seeds scattered,
but at every bus poet stop,
those that need it,
planted many inches deep
April 2 naught how I wish I was nineteen again
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
ARTICHOKES are very nice roasted with pine nuts
Who likes BANANA cream pie?
They say that eating CARROTS improves your eye sight
Along the river Nile there are many DATE palms
ELDERBERRIES make a flavorsome wine
Piths from a FIG can easily get stuck between your teeth
Nape tape and shape all rhyme with GRAPE
HORSERADISH has a hot tangy taste
ICE-PLANT is a much used vegetable in Chinese cookery
The oil extract from JUNIPER BERRIES produces quine
My sister likes KALE steamed with lemon rind
It is so nice to munch on a LETTUCE leaf
MANDARINS are presently plentiful at the green grocer's
NEEPS can be mashed or left whole
On a hot summer day chilled ORANGE juice goes down well
Has anyone got a good PUMPKIN scone recipe?
Lashings of QUINCE jam were spread on my toast
The lady next door grows RHUBARB
SPINACH gave Popeye much strength
Smothering sausages in TOMATO sauce is sensational
UGLI is a member of the citrus family
In New Orleans you'll find fresh VELVET BEANS
WATERCRESS salad is so easy to prepare
XIGUA is a type of WATERMELON
YAMS are a staple of the New Guinean diet
ZUCCHINI bread is delicious fair
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC
Shot a rabbit two days ago, it was a good shot taken at distance from height. The rabbit died instantly, it had been digging holes in my lawns, it had to go.
I watched it die and I had cause to ponder the death from a religious angle, where believers say we go to another place when we die?
I know where this rabbit went, he went into my vegetable garden, buried deep with all the other varmints and critters that have crossed my path.
Over the years we, (my wife and I), have turned that patch of barren volcanic ash into a wondrous source of lettuce, potatoes, onions, rhubarb, tomatoes and leek..by adding the carbonaceous remnants of not only these creatures but of composted vegetation, seaweed and selected fertilizers. We also grow the most beautiful roses and deliahs and crysanthemums you will ever come across.
And do you know...in the dark of night other little rabbits and bugs and things come out and nibble those very creations...unaware that they are completing the circle of being.
This is the true spirit of creation, as I see it, where deep in the garden, the motes of nutrition transmogrify beneficially from one entity to another, eventually, for the common good of all.
This is the basis of my belief. Feet on the ground...
What is....most definately is!
M.
Taranaki NZ
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 3:32 PM UTC
What is infinite is the eating of pie,
Cherry, pumpkin, apple, rhubarb, cocoanut...
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 ways,
Until there is enough pie for everyone.
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC
They say I can't chase you next
Can't seek out the moon over Mexico
or relive the tears I shed on the plane
home,
I can't feel the tirelessness of our forever
like the hope that dawned and set inside your eyes
I memorized every stitch in the broken couch
and I can still see us there
You're studying, I'm sleeping,
Planting rhubarb and watching our trees grow
Lightning shorted out the reception tower out back
As I sat on the end of our bed, mind blank, and laughed
All the glitter on the stone patio and the shirt left in the rain and the socks hung to dry on a hook you
Forgot
We kneaded pizza dough and watched Roseanne
That I jumped on you in the middle of the storm as you held me,
Kissing while UMF raged
In one loud, still moment
You are stopping me at the towel shack
Finding my legs under the restaurant table
Shoving my mittened hand in your pocket
Asking me to stay
Messaging me
and I know I'll chase you again
I just can't be with you now.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
I Love Pie & You Sweetie Pie!
I Love Pie & You Sweetie Pie
Love pumpkin pie its so good
Awe taste just like it should
Love lemon pie with a
touch of ****
Love it deep down in my
heart
I love jello pie it's
so sweet
The way it wiggles
it's so neat!
Love pie of banana cream
And chocolate is my dream
I love blueberry too
It's so good & blue
I love BlackBerry too awe
so sweet and black
Pick em right off the vines
and put em in a sack
I love apple pie topped
with cheese
Oh and make that a scoop
of val ice cream please
Oh and also the Apple Dutch
Oh how I love it so much!
Custard Boston and
Zesty Lime,
Whip Cream Humble and
Rhubarb all the time!
Quick Set Frozen Cream
Pie and Oreo Cookie Crust
Sweet Tatter and Velvet
Turtle Now that's a must!
But my favorite pie
of all is true
That's my favorite pie
"Sweetie Pie" it's you!
WrittenBy:BarbieKirk
11-24-14 5:09am
www.allpoetry.com/RainbowBlessings
© Barbie Kirk . All rights reserved, 16 hours ago
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 10:45 PM UTC
Why oh why do I love pie?
The ABCs of it and
the LMNO-Pie of it
A Apple Pie
B Boston cream Pie
C Cherry Pie
D Dutch Apple Pie
E Equation Pie 3.14
F Fruit Pie
G Grandma's Gooseberry Pie
H Humble Pie
I Ice Cream Pie
J Jell-O Pudding Pie
K Kidney Pie
L Lemon Meringue Pie
M Moon Pie
N Nutty Pecan Pie
O Oreo Cookie Crust Pie
P Pud'nin Pie
Q Quick Set Frozen Cream Pie
R Rhubarb Pie
S Sweet Tater Pie
T Tuxedo Pie
U Upside Down Pineapple Pie
V Velvet Truffle Pie
W Whip Cream Pie
X PIE IN THE FACE
Y Yummy Pie
Z Zesty Lemon/Lime Pie
Now you have the XYZ of it
and the PIE of it
Why oh why do you love Pie?
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 3:17 PM UTC
blueberries gasoline and prostate gland
breast cancer Wonderbread and pacifier
controlled experiment space travel and honey
peanuts inductive reasoning and electricity
tornadoes torture chamber and biscuits
copyright car radio cantaloupe
golden eagle lunch break tomato
Romanian songbook rhubarb and barbed wire
always hungry nevermind meat loaf
goosefoot mango juice Ipad
mosquito bite city street and broccoli
Chinese cabbage female *** drive water sport
pure contralto goat yogurt new year
black death white light and green tea
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
Crunching over the surface,
the bold warriors go
wave after wave of custard
will not fill the men with woe
rhubarb in abundance
doesn't slacken their resolve
any sprinkled sugar
with their sweat they will dissolve
though relentlessly they battle on,
the end it will come soon
"for heaven's sake men,mind the ****** spoon......."
Jan 16, 2011
Jan 16, 2011 at 2:39 PM UTC
I am from too long grass
that left muted green stains on my knees
From rock gardens overrun with punny yellow snapdragons
which delivered into my care all sorts of fascinating creepy crawlers
I'm from ash grey two by fours
which were all together fun to climb on
but gave nasty splinter when they were mad
I'm from the woodchips and sand
that provided me an elaborate landscape
in which to house my boundless imagination
I'm from the tail of sulfur smoke
that burned white hot through the crisp October Sky
and propelled my rocket to high heaven
or so it seemed to my eger eyes
I am from Thursdays
from green and red rhubarb leaves
and dirt under every fingernail
I'm from hurling half-rotten tomatoes
at the fence accross the ally
and running haphazardly from angry neighbors
I'm from lasagna and jell-o
candels on Christmas eve
and the squirt bottle of water
my only defense against ants
I am from obscure old families
who came over like so many others
and played the ***** in the secret choir loft above the church
I'm from woodwinds and piano strings
and never a silent moment
From reading aloud and reading alone
and from those who did the reading
I'm from the future and the present and the past of a million different stories
And I've always been headed towards
Where I'm from.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 2:47 PM UTC
morning coco pops and
silence in the low house
we creep around the halls
a playground, a waterpark
whatever we wanted
until he appears in the doorway
caught rapid hand in biscuit tin
wraps us in his puce embrace
it is in the wind that blows across the cold north beach
it is in the rain that bids hydrangea bloom
it is in the golden crust that tops the rhubarb ****
and in the weight that comes with "see you soon"
buzzcut season in the air
wooden hearts are carved with care
arrows fly through misty skies
watch him climb the spiral stair
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 10:54 AM UTC
a late harvest in Brigadoon
plucked from good earth
by strong hands
hauling
uphill, until
a gentle
slope
rewards
a stiff
back; easing
a grateful
burden
that levitates
famine
[ bushels ]
now
ziggarats
in a root
cellar
a Sumerian skyline
of parsnips and rhubarb
with fennel minarets
where Gilgamesh slept
in a pantry of pagan loot
underneath a corner room
at the very back
of a round
house.
where four seasons bunk with an almanac
mason jars of pickled beets
breathing their own blood
hanging gardens from the ceiling
of the Underworld
like fliers of missing children
on telephone poles
i go outside and wander off
you stay home
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 2:02 AM UTC
*Fall In Love Or Fall In Lust.
Make Plans, Or Make Cookies.
There Is Living To Do Here.
There Are Books To Read, And Movies To Watch.
There Are Art Museums Meant To Wonder Through, And Ocean Waters To Taste.
There Are Plays That Deserve Standing Ovations, And Musicals With Words That Need To Be Sung, There Are Girls That Need To Be Kissed, There Are Boys That Need To Know What It Feels Like To Have Their Hands Held.
There Are Poems That Need To Be Screamed At The Tops Of Someone's Lungs. There Are History Books With Frayed Edges, And Broken Tea Pots That Died Before Their First Breath.
There Are Heart Throbs Waiting To Make Teenage Girls Swoon.
There Are Jeans, With Knees That Are Begging To Be Ripped Open.
There Are Sunflowers That Have Never Been Told “You Are My Sunshine”.
There Are Grandfathers With Empty Laps, And Mothers With Empty Wallets.
There Are Law Students, With Hearts Ready For Humanity, There Are Babies With Broken Families.
There Are Fortune Cookies With Untold Wisdom, And Grandmothers With The Best Rhubarb Crisp Recipe You Have Ever Tasted.
There Are Undiscovered Passions, And Ancient Ruins.
There Are Empty Canvases And Blank White Walls.
There Are Silences, Recorded And Played Back For The Ears Of The Empty. There Are Places On This Earth Where The Sky Is The Color Of Bleeding Tissue Paper. There Are Places On This Earth, Where Dry Lightening Storms, Are As If God Himself Is Snapping Photos.
There Are Lost Valentines, And Flickering Lampposts. There Are Forgotten Dates And Remember Birthdays.
There Are Lost Puppies And One Man Bands.
There Are Butterflies With Missing Wings, And Eagles That Mate For Life.
There Are Places We Put Our Insane, And Others We Place Our Sick.
We Have Tattooed Our Mistakes On Skin, And Branded Cattle To The Same Tune.
There Are Times We Fall Together, And Others In Witch We Fall Apart.
There Are Moments When We Gage Our Existence In The Breaths We Take, And Moments When We Gage It In The Moments That Take Our Breath Away.
There Are Times We Take Chances And Times We Take Pills.
There Are Moments When We Bruise Our Knees While Praying, And Others Where We Break Kneecaps For Dollar Bills.
There Is Living To Be Done Here.
There Are Words To Be Spoken, And Even More To Be Written.*
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 8:26 PM UTC
break the poem
open like a pomegranate
spill the seeds
squeeze the juice
and
**** the flesh
when we were kids
we played in
mother's garden:
carrots, strawberries,
rhubarb, tomatoes,
plums, raspberries,
cucumbers, pumpkins,
green beans, watermelon,
onions, potatoes
and
a goldfish named Pierre
he died after
my parents
cleaned his tank
and didn't rinse
it properly
done in by soap--
life can be such a
fragile thing sometimes
we buried him
in the garden
and marked his
grave with a
smooth river stone
one summer
we picked a great
big watermelon
from its dirt nap;
heavy as a bowling
ball and green
as a cat's eye
we heaved it onto
the picnic table
and carved it into
smaller
and smaller wedges
until each one
of us was holding
our very own
chunk of melon
everyone dug in
after admiring their
piece for a moment;
eating it with
their eyes
before their
mouths
but as I went
to bite into mine
I noticed a seed
in the way
so I peeled
at it to free it
and as I fingered
the dripping flesh
of the fruit
the 'seed' revealed
itself to be
not a seed at all
but the eye
of a goldfish
staring back at me
lodged in the melon
in its death throws
gasping for
breath in the
open air
its mouth opening
and closing like
it had a secret
to tell
I stood there
in stupefaction
when suddenly
it slipped free of
its womb
and landed in the grass
behind me
but when I
turned around
to retrieve it
I couldn't find it
there was no goldfish
anywhere in that yard
I checked under
my feet
under the picnic table--
under other people's
feet--nothing
"what are you
looking for?" someone
asked
"nothing," I said,
because who
would've believed it
anyway?--I'm not
even sure if I did--
"just thought I dropped
something."
I stood back up
feeling different
about the world--
like the mystery
ran deeper than any
of us realize--
looked at
my hunk of fruit
and discovered
I wasn't hungry
anymore
so I put
it down on
the picnic table
and walked over
to Pierre's grave
there, underneath
that river stone,
was a watermelon seed
just beginning to
sprout
I smiled in
bewilderment
and gently covered
it with fresh soil
moving the stone
a few centimeters
off the sprouting seed
'Pierre, the watermelon
fish,' I thought--
wiping the dirt
from my hands--
'I wonder what
death has in store
for me?'
Mar 13, 2021
Mar 13, 2021 at 9:45 AM UTC
WHAT AM I DOING
rhyming is hard
just like rhubarb
pie
sly pie
why are you sly, pie?
the frog is on a log
with the hard rhubarb pie
I’M SO NOT DIGGING THIS
i kind of just want to fling
myself off a bridge
this is really hard
lard
there is NO POINT TO THIS “POEM”
NO WORDS RHYME WITH POEM
have you ever noticed how teenagers are SO ******* SAD
TEENAGERS ARE SO SAD
THEY ARE SO SAD
AND FOR WHAT
SAD BECAUSE YOU WERE CALLED A ****
ITS SO HARSH BUT ITS TRUE
PUSH YOUR BACK AGAINST THE WALL AND BE BLUE
IF YOU CHOOSE
nope not happening
down to the important stuff
trying your luck // the strokes
old yellow bricks // arctic monkeys
electric feel // mgmt
alone, together // the strokes
stray away // the colourist
games // the strokes
SLY PIE
rhubarb pie
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 12:10 PM UTC
We doh cur fer fancy werters
Bring us bangers in mashed terters
Gie us pork-pie caressed wi mustard
Rhubarb crumble topped wi custard
If yo’ve got a full day werkin
Black-pudding, eggs, beans and bercon
Un doh keep saying, ‘it’ll do ya no gud!’
We wont loads o’ graerty pud
If yo’me hungry jus the job
A great big hondfull of suetey gob
Grannies rice-puddin wi a gob o’ jam
Branston pickle on hunied-ham
Fish-un-chips wrapped in old newsperper
Ma’s bread puddin, nah that’s the cerper
Un if yo’ve got a babby-sitta
Wash it daen wi Bonks’s bitta
Black-Country fowk doh wont fancy starters
We wont bercon wie grey farters!
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 1:48 PM UTC
White snowflakes fall.
Brown boots break the ground.
Porcelain perceptions
are lost and now
crimson puddles
seed the grounds.
This is what is found
when nationalistic
rhetoric
slowly crosses
from let’s make
this country great
to this is who
is to blame
and who to hate.
Till, that ill suited
nuclear rage
resets the atomic age
and glass jars
of peach preserves,
rhubarb,
and non-perishables
in dusty cellars
are the only things
left of us human beings.
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
we have wandered to these parts
(*yeah, 'these parts,' mim, that's what
we call that here in kansas*)
because you said this was the only
place the sky could almost touch you
if you stretched your fingers far enough.
when we reach the top of the hill
you climb up on a rock that seems
impossible, shout nasty words
because you don't think anyone can
hear you way up here. the sun
starts to slip toward the horizon
and you turn to me with a pink
reflection in your eyes, tell me to
reach my hands up until i can't
reach any further.
oh, this is a good one. you feel that? you feel that?
i look at you, your arms far above
your head and eyes closed, your
skin honey colored in this light.
yeah. yeah i can.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 12:15 AM UTC
The light hits your hand
And my mouth hits the floor
It's the way you touch my neck
And your eyes that tell me "more"
This is divine
sublime
it's a crime
I'd suppose
To feel so earthed
And so high-
Slipping down the slope
of the bridge of your nose
Those naked
sacred
puppy dog eyes
Strawberry rhubarb pies
and warm wool
I don't know how you do it
if only I knew it
I feel like you know me so well
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 6:16 PM UTC
*What be more grandiose than poetry,
expound at your own discretion,
bottle sunshine, save it in a jar,
tie an affectionate knot, spread it around
flood desert mirages with flowing spirits,
speaks kindly and murderously about love,
can tempt winds to uncoil temptation's gist
****** upon or written asunder desperation
relentless in its seizing of human behavior,
magnifying moonbeams or star's decimation
perfumed magnolias to winter's cruelty,
call of the wild midst sweetness of fresh rhubarb pie,
infinitely vast in its incalculable grasp of predication,
beyond limitless infrastructures 'neath fancied significance*
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:03 PM UTC
alt. i.e.:
never give a monotheism to
the egyptians -
those ******* pseudo Nubian
camel herders know
jack-shit about
the value of encoding
sounds (can't match the mandarin,
their pictographic
became extinct like
the neanderthals) - or to put it
for a milder palette: here's
Ra's rhubarb... and here's
Gengen-Wer... now
match-up the rhino horn
to the donkey's tail
and the elephants trunk
with five blindfolded men...
they should be happy to have
a logic named after them,
happily dancing into Egyptology...
you get the picture,
i know the Mamluks defeated
the stinking horde of Genghis...
but i'd hardly think it necessary
to export Islam into africa to
get some sense on the matter -
look what happened when
christianity was exported from
egypt (the nag hammadi library
found by a shepherd in Osama's caves);
exporting Islam into north Africa
and hence further west
created the Shiah schism where
Islam belonged (in the east);
beware the setting sun;
believe me, it's personal, i'm not
******* on or burning flags
for the Cairo taxi driver to mind...
this is bedroom secrets' anathema.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
I learned about Oxalic Acid
At seventeen
When less than anxious for yet more information
More notes on a chalkboard
In a malodorous Sulphurous school room.
Hastily copied in pencil
Scribbled then and required to be transformed
Later, into copperplate, almost textbook pages.
To be judged as adequate; or not.
Oxalic Acid; not as deadly.
But in a close league,
To the clear deadly liquids
Held in the dusty skull marked bottles
Within easy reach of any manic schoolboy.
Dusty bottles in a rack
In a rack on a bench
On a bench where I sat
Where I sat wondering why my mind
My sharp juvenile mind would never grasp
Molecular Valence Theory quite as well
As the taste of a girls lips
The smell of her hair
The ring of her laugh
The answer to a question in her eyes.
Years later
When that girl had gone
I read that Oxalic Acid is found in Rhubarb leaves.
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC