"tractors" poems
lady craighead played the blues
on a stand-up samick
in the ***** room
along side the parsons project
and squabbling dogs
and night moves
stairs creek
up the mezzanine trek
wool sheets slide
on finished floors
little angels
play late into the seventh
(a closing match nearing
the midnight hour)
croaking toads and cicada
sing in the blue moon
musty smells and mothballs
settle deep in the vault
the kettle boils
and cat coils
as the pump house rolls
its heavy drawl
the red phone rings
and bird clock sings
(behind the ruddy stall)
a sleeman variation of the ruy lopez
employed heartily
by the incomparable master jack
marble toast burning
wringer wash churning
chris craft running
near the old carp canoe
rooster calls
and west wind squalls
rustle through the porch screen door
chicken *** pies
and rogue flies linger
a rocker chair placed
near the sepia face
(softened by the intricate frame)
donkey in tow
(with a fastened ***
maggie in her dreams
of green tambourines
the nocturnes
reflections
and whispering gospel bells
tractors pull on
the grinder stone
horses lay still
in the mid-day sun
a trump card is fingered
at the furnace click
(crosswords and puzzles are next!)
while the sparrow
*and that **** rabid fox*
are drowning
deep in castles well
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
Summer days and heatwaves
Sweat pouring down our skin
Working hard no time to rest
From the time the day begins.
Bailing hay without a shade
Not a single cloud insight
Gathering all the barely corn
We work until the night.
we have a little hideaway
A place down in the vale
Its where we drink some scrumpy
Along with beer and ale.
We while away an hour or more
Depending on how we feel
We rest and take it easy
No sound from the tractors wheel.
Now tomorrow is another day
Our work load it will keep
We may be striming hedge grows
Or we may be shearing sheep.
But we really are not bothered
We've been farmers far too long
We carry out our dutys
And sometimes with a song.
Our lives are hard but simple
We are living the country life
Away from the city and the fumes
From cars and such alike.
You see we have this hideaway
A little place down in the vale
So come along and join us
At the end of a farmers day
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 9:13 AM UTC
Your limitless future brings great fear
The future is less far and more near
Glasses will replace cellphones next year
Hundreds can share one's eyes
People you replace will shed a tear
Tech is human's demise
You con with lights and buttons and bells
Amplifying strength, you fit in cells
We drown in technological wells
You thrive and humans shrink
The addiction will rot us in Hell
People! Log off and think!
When do we cease with this life carefree
It's time people let well enough be
Tech will soon replace humans for free
Tractors and new machines
Starved, by stealing the jobs of many
Limitations obscene
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC
porch talk, simmering in a Bud light sauce
everyone chair-rocking, even the boxer dog,
in his self-propelled 360 degree swiveling chair
eavesdropping and spy eyeballing the farm for
strangers and any creatures as of yet, unsmelled
get done with weather, the crops,
the neighbors,
the weird, and the truly neighborly,
grandkids escapades, hopes and desires, comparative literature and regional dialects and philosophical dialecticals tickling,
bs’ing and tall tale telling, breathing the windy geography of the air over the land that dictates the how we live,
open another Bud for the buds,
did I forget to mention
farm equipment?
skirt politics cause nobody wants any
nothing-to-be-done-damn-aggravation,
leaves nothing mo’ to ramble on about ‘cept the
absent women
no worries all above board no secrets uncouthed,
but the mood softens as the pale daylight wisps come rarer
as now
nearer to nine pm, obvious saved the best for last,
a very manly-way of ordering things,
big silent pauses in the converso conversation,
guy-sighs many,
as the last essay of the day is being jointly authored,
denotating the generalized listings of
how they drive us crazy,
listing the repetition of ever changing instructions,
which doesn't recognize bi-coastal mannerisms, non-differentiating
just humanism-isms
and the peculiarities of each (a list kept)
in a compare and contrast,
an end of the day summation,
and the boasting-outbesting,
of each of their
specialisms
which is sadly now forgotten and which haven’t been
brain-recorded so cannot be disclosed
other than it’s now ten
and all that’s left is
to sleep, perchance, to dream,
of private things
and bigger and better
John Deere tractors
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 2:13 PM UTC
Art Bouchard,
My father,
Never marched a drill,
Nor fired an angry shot...
Recounted fond memories
I've heard so many times:
How long ago, when I was very young,
He and our neighbor,
Art Pribnow,
Up before the sun,
Engaged in tractor battles
(Dad was very sure he won).
My father woke those mornings,
Early 1960s,
With the popping cough of
Worn diesel pistons
Clattering out white smoke...
Then blue and black,
As engine heat and friction
Tightened gaps,
Sealed compression,
And the motor steadied into an even roar.
Across the county road
Our only neighbor led or followed suit,
Sending smoke and sound
To drown the morning songs
of meadowlarks and robins.
Fifty years later,
Dad laughed in recollection,
"We started rising just a little
Earlier each day.
Started up our tractors
In a sort of game
Called, 'Who's out first?'"
Six became a quarter of,
Then five-thirty backed to four.
One tractor or the other roared,
Early and then earlier
To be the first to pull
Into the waiting fields.
When three-thirty came around
My mother shook her head,
But if she said a word,
I never heard.
These battling neighbors
Even started engines up
Before they ran,
Milking buckets swinging,
to their barns to chore
As early became earlier
in the little farmers' war.
One day in town,
By happenstance,
A meeting came between the two.
My father, being younger,
Had energy for more,
But old Art Pribnow shook his head,
Grabbed my dad's hand and said,
"Let's stop this foolishness
Before one of us is dead!
I don't know about the hours you keep,
Or what got in our heads,
But I admit, I need my sleep!"
The farmer battle ended then.
A hand shake and a smile
Between two farmer friends,
Created country lore,
Remembered here a little while,
As, "The Early, Earlier War."
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 9:04 PM UTC
I am from New Jersey.
From the paradise of small towns
And the inferno of concrete jungles.
I am from truck tire playgrounds,
Porch Clubs, and the whistle
Of the Riverline.
I am from divorce.
From alcoholism and denial,
From broken doors and hearts.
I am from next to hell.
From pouring out full forties
For one's homies passed away.
From too many candlelight vigils
And sidewalks littered with fourth grade pictures.
I am from the garden state.
From cows, corn, and Clinton,
And tractors in the parking lot.
I am from tradition.
From pasta and seven fishes,
From "Mafiosa!" screamed in the streets
And "No WHOPs" pasted on storefronts.
I am from love.
From three parents and four siblings,
From six dogs and duplicate holidays,
And the smell of tulips and holly.
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 10:09 PM UTC
An old tree is
Embracing the soil
Embracing the sky
Without a will
Simply, to thrive
Just as easily
To die
Rid of evening chants
Lacking logic, lacking time
Each thread
Integrates
Thoughtlessly
But we
With ladders of misery
With counts and scales
And endless isolation machines
Our soil is dust
And fabled peace
Lies dormant
Rust creeps over
Our ploughs and tractors...
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
he is the guy who plants the rice corn and wheat
so each one of us has something to eat
at break of day he tills the many acres of land
for his harvest of food there is a great demand
he is the guy who milks the cows twice a day
to make the butter and cream for afternoon tea trays
shop sell these goods to people everywhere
his milking shed produces such fine fair
he is the guy who grows peaches and marrows
collecting them on tractors and in wheel barrows
he is dedicated to the pursuit of growing staples
which grace our kitchen and dining room tables
he is the guy that rarely gets much recognition
hard work he does and in all weather conditions
the man on the land provides our mouths with a feed
his vocation serves a community of need
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 5:18 AM UTC
i live in a ******** so boring tractors roam the streets in the usual
traffic,
but i found that you can wizen up to a title of wizard
by finding inanimate things entertaining and thought provoking,
because the internet will not become
the next scapegoat of goldfish memory - not the next
box of entertainment - it will be what god’s green earth indented.
out here, where you’re far from trafalgar sq. you
get crows circling back to the origin of the woods with odin on the lyre
venting out against too much pigeon **** coo coo of the attired men and women marking karma with the no. 13 and being ******* on from on high,
you get seagulls, even, seagulls so far into dry land... imagine!
and you get the autistic zoning in of the cat’s eye,
those cats are very autistic, their eyes tell the sad sad story
of encapsulated solipsism - snap your fingers or meow
and they look at you passing you looking at some randomised
point of entering their sleeping pattern - very autistic those cats,
they look at you almost cross-eyed when you try to snap them out of it -
out of it being: ****** off at being awake.
very autistic those cats, those cats are very autistic, they look
at you looking past you, looking almost cross-eyed -
don’t blame me for the zigzag or the w!
so as i said, it’s so boring where i live you see tractors and crows,
and the only solidification of your presence is either provided for
by an addiction to television eager for the flicker -
or drinking... watching bricks, thinking bits and bobs out
for the torrent of slavic plumbers building the great ****** of london.
lo... upon the yonder... there it blooms *******
i like places where trees tower over man's handing man brick on brick -
makes the sky a bit bigger and less asthmatic.
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 10:29 AM UTC
A tattered bird had a made a tomb
in tepid water, it was a puddle
near the framework of a half-built room—
but the soul’s a swerving tunnel
and the dead are waiting at the end:
all sorts of animals huddled at the fringe
where littered pine needles stand
and creep inside the sandy construction site,
pale in the morning light,
the tractors dug aesthetic swirls in the sand—
a culvert keeps the brook alive,
it flows into the forest, which learns to mend
its scars with the festering of its things:
kingfishers’ **** on the berries and branches,
if the plants could undo their own stink
the heart wouldn’t die on its haunches—
the morning’s dew resolves to hoary ice,
its killing the greenery,
but the sandblasters lean, arranged by the outhouse, like
a dream, the first worker arrives early
he rests against a smooth-planed board—
flood the mind, but be sure to drain it out,
its his breakfast cup of tea that stores
his knowledge of beauty
past the place where the bushes are thin
there is an apple orchard, plucked to pieces at the end of fall—
trees arranged in ranks, held up with wires and strings:
a dementia arboreal—
the smells from the orchard meet
the smells from the machines and hover
above the building-zone, mixing with the bite
of cold humidity—a cruel kind of vapor
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:10 PM UTC
I exhaled
Smoke riding towards
The stars
My eyes red swollen
Tracing thousands of scars
And everything felt stolen
And my blood and pain covered me
In places you couldn’t see
My knees scratched
Feeling brokenly free
And I let my eyes
Become the ocean
I asked God for something
Broken from emotion
And I saw lights
That made me smile
Some nights
Breaking what I thought
Was unreliquishing darkness
Which I addictively sought
And God I swear
I tasted heaven
Smelt it in the air
The lights dimmed
And the beach tractors
Drove past me
But heaven went right through me
And even through that hell
I tasted heaven
And that kept me
Alive
Because I saw the light and I tasted heaven
When I was drowning in hell
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 2:34 PM UTC
Sometimes he was like f+ck it
just went ahead and stuck em
let em fall where they stood
crack another bottle and brood
hysterically on the ridiculous
he had a meticulous knack for belittling the serious, berating feelings and imposing his will in a furious fashion. He liked knives and passion, and will cash in on your lashings. A vigilante, stealing antes to match the chips. The missing teeth of split lipped grinns bidding his amends to the dense. sent to cleanse, the fences on the perimeter. a distributor of disasters.
contributor to the laughter in the stoical spleens of nerdy teens, always cheering for the away team.
He was the benefactor of traction-less tractors rotting in the mud. He was a slacker, smothering the world in love. He was above all else, on drugs.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 10:58 PM UTC
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a shrill sound
Day and night. Nothing that Glyn Dwr
Knew was armour against the rain's
Missiles. What was descent from him?
Even God had a Welsh name:
He spoke to him in the old language;
He was to have a peculiar care
For the Welsh people. History showed us
He was too big to be nailed to the wall
Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him
Between the boards of a black book.
Yet men sought us despite this.
My high cheek-bones, my length of skull
Drew them as to a rare portrait
By a dead master. I saw them stare
From their long cars, as I passed knee-deep
In ewes and wethers. I saw them stand
By the thorn hedges, watching me string
The far flocks on a shrill whistle.
And always there was their eyes; strong
Pressure on me: You are Welsh, they said;
Speak to us so; keep your fields free
Of the smell of petrol, the loud roar
Of hot tractors; we must have peace
And quietness.
Is a museum
Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper
Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust
In my own eyes? I am a man;
I never wanted the drab role
Life assigned me, an actor playing
To the past's audience upon a stage
Of earth and stone; the absurd label
Of birth, of race hanging askew
About my shoulders. I was in prison
Until you came; your voice was a key
Turning in the enormous lock
Of hopelessness. Did the door open
To let me out or yourselves in?
3.1k
Our snowmen, they're not made of white,
they're tumbleweeds, rolled up tight.
No top hat upon his head,
a cowboy hat sits there instead.
His face and buttons, tree ornaments,
boots and lariat, his accoutrements.
Saguaro cacti with lights wrapped round,
illuminate the landscaped grounds.
Old horse drawn wagons get the festive touch.
With lighted garlands, packages and such.
Porch rails glow with colored lights,
Christmas trees in windows, warm the nights.
Our little town gets all decked out.
Then we gather along the old parade route.
Folks on horseback with ribbons and bells.
The horses know the parade route well.
Marching school bands play Christmas songs,
trucks and tractors carry carolers along.
Floats abound from businesses and groups.
Braving the cold, the Christmas Cowboy Troops.
We all stand up to clap and cheer,
as Santa, as usual, brings up the rear.
Waving his red cowboy hat, in a horse drawn sleigh,
Welcoming Christmas, the Wickenburg way.
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 11:42 AM UTC
they had big yards and driveways
but there were no lemonade stands or ice cream trucks
the tractors drove through the middle of town
the people didn't use sidewalks or drugs
they drank dollar domestics and never passed algebra
and there wasn't a gallon of whiskey to be had
there weren't any transvestites either
the people had seven children and not one job
they walked on two jiffy store feet
and had only half as many teeth.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 9:25 PM UTC
My darling, I have begun to dream
Of tractors, crossing
The river Jordan
From my mind spun a chronicle of death, foretold
I began to think that in 100 years, solitude
Will be afforded, there will be
No more tractors, Or
Lawnmowers, Or
V8 engines, Just
Silence, Love, So
I shall not wake you in choleric times, I shall return
To the memories of another; of melancholic insomnia
That ***** that unwritten
Love letter to the colonel,
and think, You know,
Earplugs may not be so bad.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 9:01 PM UTC
matt’s hats tom’s tools & tobacco lou’s liquors fred’s beds dale's doors frank’s planks bill’s drills jane’s drains & panes chuck’s check cashing cheryl’s barrels hank’s tanks tina’s trucks & tractors walt’s asphalt sean’s pawn rick’s rifles mom’s guns terry’s tires charlie’s harleys rhonda’s hondas jim’s rims art’s parts gus’s gas mike’s bikes frank’s feed gwen’s pens ann’s cans nancy’s nursery joes‘s clothes jess’s dresses bert’s skirts steve’s sleeves paul’s shawls michelle’s shells & bells al’s pails & snails sam’s hams & jams patty’s pancakes phil’s chili don’s donuts betty’s spaghetti bob’s burgers alycia’s quiches jean’s beans jerry’s berries anna’s bananas andy’s candies cathy’s taffies tony’s ponies roy’s toys ron’s batons kim’s whims marty’s parties jill’s pills rick’s tricks alice’s palace debbie’s disposal dave’s graves
May 23, 2010
May 23, 2010 at 5:53 AM UTC
Angels wearing world worn blue jeans,
never telling the tales that they've seen,
seen tractors pulling cow's daydreams,
bending boundaries around moon beams.
Twisted little monkeys mingling in trees
high on God's golden zephyr breeze.
Mother could you come home please?
Before the gray blue iceberg freeze.
Angels wearing world worn blue jeans,
never telling the tales that they've seen,
seen tractors pulling cow's daydreams,
bending boundaries around moon beams.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 10:48 AM UTC
Siaba trito
lost the ****** woman
who sat on his apple
with her face resister
that sought another person
to write with pajamas
on his purple sweater
that had no points
instead of purpose
to drive a monkey
where deer ride tractors
in heaven's wonder.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 2:07 PM UTC
My father,
Who never marched a drill,
Nor fired an angry shot,
Recounts fond memories
I've heard so many times:
How long ago, when I was very young,
He and our neighbor,
Up before the sun,
Engaged in tractor battles
(He's very sure he won).
My father woke those mornings,
Early 1960s,
With the popping cough of
Diesel International tractor cylinders
Clattering out white smoke...
Then blue and black,
As engine heat and friction
Tightened gaps and sealed compression,
And the motor steadied into an even roar.
Across the county road
Our only neighbor led or followed suit,
Sending smoke and sound
To drown the morning songs
of robins and meadowlarks.
Fifty years later,
Dad laughs in recollection,
"We started rising just a little
Earlier each day.
Starting up our tractors
In a sort of game
Called, 'Who's out earliest?'"
Six became a quarter of,
Then five-thirty backed to four.
One tractor or the other roared,
Early and then earlier to pull
Into the waiting fields.
When three-thirty came around
My mother shook her head,
But if she said a word,
I haven't heard.
They even started engines up
Before they ran,
Milking buckets swinging,
to their barns to chore.
As early became earlier
In the little farmers' war.
One day in town,
Entirely by happenstance,
A meeting came between the two.
My father, being younger,
Had energy for more,
But the neighbor shook his head,
Grabbed his hand and said,
"Let's stop this foolishness.
I don't know about you,
But I need my sleep."
The farmer battle ended then.
A hand shake and a smile
Between two farmer friends,
Created country lore,
Remembered here a while,
As "The Early, Earlier War."
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 8:17 AM UTC
The day he died
The sun rose just the way
It always did on cold December mornings:
Frost crystals on his back,
Breath steaming in the winter air,
A few sparrows chattering,
Molly at the barn mooing news:
Milking time!
Frozen water tank!
Hunger pains!
And where was Farmer now?
So he yawned and stretched himself,
Looked at the house whose walls
Allowed his master's voice to filter through thin, cold air:
Heard an oven door squeak wide,
The telephone ring,
Morning voices and the creak of floors,
And then the door cracked open.
Full scents emerged:
Fresh baking from the oven,
The farmer's coat and boots,
Laundry soap in fresh washed jeans,
And a bowl of food with milk
Steaming for him.
The diesel tractor coughed and roared,
Semi-warm from its head-bolt heater sleep,
and sent thick cloud plumes to winter sky
Before the engine warmed enough to move
The wheels' crunching pressure, packing snow.
Breakfast down, and morning chores to follow,
The St. Bernard stretched himself,
Pushed through the old iron gate
And followed in the tractor's track
To see the morning feeding in the snow.
No one could tell him he was getting old,
And maybe was a little stiff and slow
To follow tractors as they plowed their way
Through newly fallen snow.
An hour later, the man, the tractor and the dog
Had made their way below the farmstead hill
To feed a sheltered herd just out of wind's cold way.
What happened next is painful still to say.
The tires sank through crusted snow and spun
But forward movement failed it in its rounds;
Reversed, a chain came loose and outward flung
to pull the faithful follower down.
So what is there to say about a friend whose harm
And death came accidentally at my hand?
I knelt there in the snow and held him in my arms,
Sobbing sorrows... begging him to try to stand.
But he only looked up at me with brown, sad eyes,
Hard broken from the crushing of the wheel,
And moved his tail a little bit to show he was content
To lie there in my arms, and shuddered once and then was still.
The cows looked on impatiently,
Steam rising from their hides,
And saw me bawling on my knees
and begging mercy from my silent God.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 9:50 PM UTC
He likes to play pretend
making sense of the make believe
believing all the words
which worked their way
through his windows
he climbs to the top of hay bales
to tumble towards the earth
a heap of laughter
running away from the farmers
perched high atop their tractors
like a tractor beam
he is drawn towards
the endless day dreams
of rainy Mondays
behind classroom windows
but recess is over now
and the bar is open
all night
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 10:59 AM UTC
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.
fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.
the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.
judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.
wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.
homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
I want to fall in love with strangers on rooftops and smoke cigarettes till sunrise.
I want to drink moonshine in the fields and take rides on tractors just because.
I want to feel the soft sand between my toes and feel the salty air in my hair.
Watch the sunset over the mountain in Colorado & drink tea on the Mississippi River.
When I'm feeling blue and lost I plan trips to distant places.
When I'm missing your lips against mine, I trace the roads that will bring you home.
I want to wake up happy and go to bed happier.
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 8:53 PM UTC