"vineyards" poems
The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
16.7k
Seething injustice grows
Vineyard with deep deceiving roots
Exponential expansion
Bears insidious fruits
Don’t water the crops
Don’t eat a single grape
Don’t drink the wine
Bring to fiery waste
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
*She is on the street in her little kiosk ,
at the break of the dawn ,
When many are still on a lucid dream.
Selling the most delicious of grapes
Sourced straight from the vineyards
Assembling the previous day's discards all in a tray
Discards For humans it maybe ,
But
for her birds its a treat to relish .
Swooping
down for it ,day after day..
Mostly bought by the morning walkers ,
Many in numbers are they
old patrons , as they say.
Every day she sells her wares
Holding the loveliest of smile
That I have seen in years,
All Knowing , the pain that she hides behind .
Never misses a day nor business,
And back home she is before sundown.
Only to return the following day,
With a new stock ,at the break of the dawn.*
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 1:45 AM UTC
He is rougher then being dumped
from the saddle of a bay mare,
but perhaps she shouldn’t be riding
******** past vineyards of red rusted vines.
And if she is on fire then she should probably roll
or climb into a hot tub on ***** Thursday
and put out the flame ignited by the thought
of hoping to God his parents can’t hear her.
She had always wanted to know what it felt like
to slaughter someone. So when he placed his palms
on the arch of her back and massacred her lips,
I imagined her smashing his skull against a brick wall.
And when she is in the bathroom washing him off
her hands, with a published poet in the next stall
she shouldn’t yell **** you, I’m not a flower
and start listing off the ten rules to **** ***
Because no matter how many times she uses him
as her own personal merry go round or slams
back beer after beer, he will never die in a coffin
so that she can say he is already dead and
buried.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:12 PM UTC
twice by god's accidental interference,
our crash vehicles, super sized shopping carts,
connect, we are manger-penalized for unnecessary roughness
and disturbing the supermarkets peace
what better way to judge character than to examine
a single persons shopping cart contents?
hers,
all organic, milk, heirloom tomatoes, even the Chardonnay,
grown upon the farms of the island and vineyards on
the forks that shelter the isle from the ravages of the Atlantic
mine,
Hebrew National franks, yellow mustard,
very classy brioche buns, a six pack of Corona Light,
and funny colored, funny looking, rusted russet potato chips
with a tremulous smile, and an overly loud, derisive sniff,
pronounces me dead man walking sooner than later,
to which, I respond,
then, teach me, where shall we dine tonight?
later that night,
after a thousand kisses of her fluttering eyelashes,
she props herself upon an elbow and
in a tone sincere and caring,
extracts from the poet promises of
natural exclusivity
from now on, healthy, natural only, organic and pure,
from the soul soil of our shared habitat
her suntan skin, garden-digging hand, I clasp,
softly climbing on top of her,
announce with total genuine sincerity and solemnity;
I swear it, from now on, all my loving will be sourced locally
rewarded with a laugh and a gentle but hard enough,
garden to table (with her free hand), head smacking,
I noting nod, good naturedly
that both the laugh and smack,
as well,
*sourced locally,
sourced lovingly,*
which then seeded
this new only love jointly authored poem,
planted in our mingling blossoming crashing
bodies
5/29/17 i
12:43pm
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 1:06 PM UTC
Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used his road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone beneath the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grow close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
4.6k
*veins of my fingers in riots of blossomed colours
like threads made of lilac, lavender, blues and leafs.
for the blues are essences of the Elysian skies,
while lilacs, lavenders and leafs were stolen from an old man's farm
every dawn the sunlit blue wept for the docile stars' hide
I knock my knuckles red and wild, like the raspberries from the monsieur's farm
my chin against the beige, I gaze to where the magpies talk too loudly on the garden moist
swollen and offended by the loud chirps of boisterous dins, the grouchy neighbour cry.
I fill my baskets with wild things and papers,
I have cheese and juices, fruits and sweet carrots.
I have peach trees on my nails for jam
I have cherries in my toes for pie
I have snows in my lapin's soul for some ice creams
I have poppies in my worn pants for a good sight
And there's even vineyards of all Verona in my mind
the ribbons on the hat loom into the gardens' tunnel;
I have herb gardens, I have secret gardens
And I have my old books and pens in there.
when my laces are riven, the embroidered flowers are not.
the canvas shoes is painted in petrichors and soil
my dresses go tattered, sewn with patches
into the vines, thorns and russet throats I lilt and leap
against smells of rustic wood pencils and redolent flowers
There, under a green willow is where to sit and devour wisdom
and to drink some saccharine wine with mon lapin and maybe some picnic pies.
The abominable tremors will be gone,
My morn soul diving into fairy pools of sensuous europhias.*
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
A true story of a chance gathering of strangers in the back room of a Gelato Parlor *** restaurant, two years ago, in a little village near the bay, on a land surrounded by vineyards. Come visit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gelato Nation
There is a place,
location secret,
mine to keep,
mine with which
you to tease,
make you envious,
a back room 'office'
jealous guarded
by a barkeep,
whose chosen invites sweeps
you into a reality that is
what you will it to be.
But nota bene, note well,
remembrances of things swell
from your past be the
only tongue spoken here.
Code word entry only,
a shared whisper.
Perhaps One Woman,
may reveal its pleasures,
if she so chooses,
which are:
gelato laughs, poetry snaps,
Beatle songs sung ensemble,
by rag tag strangers
self-collected accidentally,
sung de rigeur off key
by voices lubricated by
cognac, laughter, and
the coldest of white wines,
issue of the very soil
upon which we sit.
Words to value properly,
not in my possess to capture
the few moments in time when;
Strangers transform themselves
into a triple A nation united,
that will never be
S&P; downgraded.
A holy alliance
celebrating July 4th
all night long,
all participants
signatory witnesses to
its gelato conception,
as well as pallbearers
to its last drink dissolution,
the fullness of its lifetime
a vintage of a few hours extant,
a vintage, once drunk, is
a history, forever gone.
Mixologists please record:
One playwright, a psychologist, bond trader and a social scientist
with a dash of museum director,
and do not forget the
Hundred Year Old Woman,
whose Dowager Princess Daughter
(she, a mere eighty)'
from Central Park West
clarifies all of life dilemmas with
the singular analytical tool of:
But is it good for the Jews?
**But t'is the barkeep
who is the leavening
in this evenings human
pastry-petrie dish.**
He makes the pastiche,
the ions of personalities,
coalesce best,
guitar strummer,
singer of songs that were our
multiple national anthems
when we were pseudo-rebels
starting out on our
long and winding roads.
Long the King of the Keep!
Long live the memory of our
Gelato Nation,
may it stay sweet in
our antique collection of
the best moments of
our intersecting lives.
July 2011
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC
My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;
I do no boast the harvesting of sheaves,
O’er orchards and o’er vineyards I preside.
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,
The dreamy air is full, and overflows
With tender memories of the summer-tide,
And mingled voices of the doves and crows.
4.2k
Lush mango groves
where the musky scent of mango blooms
once wafted making the
bulbuls sing in ecstasy
from morning till sundown
are reborn as gated communities,
where grim seriousness parade.
In sun drenched vineyards,
shadows of dreams,
wanting to dress up as IT parks, spread.
Bangalore barters its medley of colors and smells
for prosperity in terms of greenbacks,
as people learn to be 'smart' players,
and more and more get 'Bangalored'*
from around the world.
Corn fields that danced to the tunes
of the songs of toiling farmers
go missing within days.
To match with the new mood,
nature, in this green paradise, till not so long ago
shamelessly wears the unnatural with style.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
do you see me
from the trees the grow above me
that grow out to the vineyards
across the dirt-risen floor
yearning for the sunlight
to love once again
as I dwell on thoughts
coasting along the river
confessing out loud
to the dried sunflowers
and the ultralight beams
walking on water with
the thorns on my feet
calling out to heavens above.
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 2:44 PM UTC
*Through the incredulity burning
in the grim reaper's eyes,
He unwillingly received the souls
of those who did not deserve to die
...
The bright fluids of life lay bare
and insignificant in the godforsaken lands
He sighed the heaviest breath he could muster
Death was his trade, but this affair had him
loosening his grip on the scythe
Mumbling the dead's prayer,
The half-living defied fate's ruthless threads
And squirmed for barren hope
A child nearby cries for the light to save him
As the shadows devoured their youngest feast, so far
Now standing alone, the reaper cursed the gods
Who may or may not be listening to him
He was disgusted with the greed of these people
And their bloodbaths
Where those who avoid death and the
ones who thrillingly seek it
Summon each other with empty excuses
Thinking these are enough to fling
their guns at the righteous
Drink the innocent blood like
the finest wine from their vineyards!
Stab the weak at their remaining spots
Oh how foolish they are!
How foolish indeed!
He pities those who speak death as their honor
When they have only lived like rats
Scavengers of chances that purifies
their filthy names
He scorns those who
do not even speak of death
In their wild belief that some curse
will hand them like a platter to their graves
When death is the end that no one ,
not even him, can escape
Those cowards!
No one lives to cheat that dark fate!
No one!
The reaper was provoked by humans
Them and their incessant wonder and fear of
That that is unknown
Them who have stopped looking
at their small, definite lives
To anticipate what they could not
even begin to understand
Feeding their illusions that a special place
awaits their petty souls to rest on
Ahhh!!!He was tired of them all
Might as well finish his job...*
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 5:44 PM UTC
The green in his eyes are a radiant emerald. A green that pushed through snow reminding you that spring was coming. That churning, passionate green that ocean turns during a storm. A green resembling the color of the forest after it rains. A luminous layer of water lays over the leaves, giving them the exquisite form like the eye of the Wizard of Oz. A soft green like an old sweater that's been washed too many times. A piercing green that made you stop to look again after a glimpse, one that made you look twice because once could never satisfy. Sunlight plays inside of them, dancing with pools of pine. Your eyes lure in innocence and twist it into ivy vineyards. I cannot resist them, I never could.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 12:21 PM UTC
His old age fell on years of abundant harvest.
There were no earthquakes, droughts or floods.
It seemed as if the turning of the seasons gained in constancy,
Stars waxed strong and the sun increased its might.
Even in remote provinces no war was waged.
Generations grew up friendly to fellow men.
The rational nature of man was not a subject of derision.
It was bitter to say farewell to the earth so renewed.
He was envious and ashamed of his doubt,
Content that his lacerated memory would vanish with him.
Two days after his death a hurricane razed the coasts.
Smoke came from volcanoes inactive for a hundred years.
Lava sprawled over forests, vineyards, and towns.
And war began with a battle on the islands.
3.1k
*blink an eye and it will disappear
blink the other and you will cry
a thousand tears of joy
blink them both and watch
fireflies alight the azure sky
in suspenseful darkness the alabaster moon
croons its romantic breath over all those vineyards
angels taste the dryness of the grapes
and laugh at the waste of another year’s wine
move out of the way of human frailty
share your space with our immortal stakes
a slavery more terrible than any mankind has yet to try
the Goddess is our home
sower of seeds for those that fast internally
rise the quickest
and dance the hardest
seek the longest roads
give more than you’ve ever known
swallow whole this ocean filled
with the bones of your daughters
forsaken in trendy delicatessens
our heroes are just myths that drift
like derelicts in psyche’s mythos
i am pathos, eros and shadow
i am daylight’s twin brother
her-eyes-on the horizon
yet she could see through to his soul
her-eyes-on the horizon
if we are destined to find our way back home*
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 10:28 PM UTC
Always____**
Days
Months
Up to our loved ones
necks
Getting callbacks
and lookbacks
Will I be
most likely rejected?
Until dusk to Dawn
The full moon turned
What will be expected?
Shoved mouth to mouth
brewed into the
Starbucks
With any luck
It's hard to make
a buck $
The Dawn Lightning
Striking again wetter
Ridiculous remarks
and kicks
in the pants
He shoved
me into a romance
But we never
ended up where
I wanted to go
France
The editorial the
Mediterranean
Slim chance rainbow diet
The villas of the exotic
flowers riot
Vacationer in vineyards
Grassy bear
Mr. Griswald
Vacation despair
Party pushovers
The sour cherries OOh!
La Wee Vacation,
The push and shove
What's up
Doc_____*
The jilted Jump always
a stump
What-what
about the
President
Trump
Shoved me right
into
this poem
sonnet
Documents of
Vacations places
of memories
The Jack ***
Surrounded by
screwdriver
Or meeting the
screwballs_______
Or goofballs
Sesame Street parade
Big bird feast
His face climbed
Mount Everest
Dry mouth lips
((Frenchie Vermouth))
He's the
right fielder
The field Mr. Costner
on her left dreams
The toast all shoved
around the town
chauffeur
Don't shove me
inside
your world
vacation
Big problems not
like ordering
the best pizza
in Brooklyn
Memorial day
shoved into a soiree'
Unbelievable traffic
American Major
problem leagues
Upscale love signs
and graphics
To resolve this
Vacation big shots
The London
Hotshots
Society
At the worst time,
I had to do
Political speech
Don't shove
me or leave me
If you're not
going to please me
And not your
payroll to
tease me
He's next on the move
pushed to be shoved
I rose
I suppose
He shoved me
He gazed upon me
Like another ticket
to his vacation
He dazed with
his eyes
not to be loved
But all yummy
To take a bite
Apple strudel
pie
But dark ends
of petal
flowered bright
The last word
struggling to
feel shot
My payroll got me a raise
My own vacation
to myself big praise
to love me
Not to be pushed to
love someone
A vacation is to be
with someone that
treats you
on a pedestal
Don't shove me this
is my portal
May 25, 2018
May 25, 2018 at 2:44 PM UTC
And the sun will rise with you in morns
Tulips would dance through your way
The birds would sing their best tunes
The blue ocean, your aisle today!
Highlands would bend and kiss your feet
Vineyards would grow when you lay
I can see how the nights fall for you
they silently conspire that you to stay
My pretty darling ,trust me when I say ,
Everything would be pretty on a wrong way
Trust the woods ,all dark and lone
Let’s be rebels for once today.
Between the fear of wolfs and ghosts
Across the rainbows of tears and smiles,
If you don’t see any footsteps ahead,
I’m sure there your treasure awaits.
Now tell me pretty darling,
Aren’t you in love with the stretched ray of dusk?
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
Love like wine --
Love like wine.
A love so sweet
Like grape from the vine,
From the vineyards of passion,
Where the fruits are plump;
Plump and fat,
Growing as the sun glistens on their skin.
No evil can breed in these roots,
For when the lights are dim,
The moonlight is a protector --
And love is never mute.
Love like wine --
Love like mine.
Organic, not fabricated
Though it may not stand the test of time,
For when my body decays,
And goes into another phase
Love cannot be sent --
There is no one to give it.
But may you ever read it,
And forever feel it.
A Sun upon your skin,
To the waves of your soul.
Caressing your heart,
Perfecting its art --
A wine tasting class
To taste a love of the future,
Making love in the future,
To share love of the past.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
Hello old friend,
With your tall sweeping evergreens
Towering almost endlessly
Into a blue clear sky
The endless swell of traffic
Cars peeling down the street
The smell of roasted coffee beans
From some hole-in-the-wall cafe
The obvious transplant donning an umbrella in the Autumnal warm rain
The light sprinkling of water enough
To nurture the verdant green
Hello old friend,
Mt. Rainier, she greets me,
Looming ever majestically
Over expanses of tree and road
Her white peaks cresting over
Fields of blossoming flowers
The tulip fields scattered across the sloping
Skagit Valley, her vineyards spanning for miles and miles
Hello old friend,
Seattle's grungy nature
Masked by her streets of trendy
Cafes and farm-to-table restaurants
Her mom and pop cafes
Her canvas gray dress marred by graffiti
And street tags
The busker on the street corner panhandling for change
The homeless sheltering under a cardboard blanket outside of a Starbuck's
The transplant with the umbrella stopping down to drop change in their jar
The crumpled dollar
The locals who pointedly ignore him on their way to work, to school, back home, to somewhere...anywhere...
The constant dazed bustle
The stench and pungent odor of ****
Curling around every seedy corner and
Affluent street crossing
Hello old friend,
It's been a while
Let me nestle into your newness
A new coast greets me across the horizon
Replaced by homespun everything
Pastoral fields where the bovine and equine reside
Hello old friend,
I suppose you're home now
I suppose you're home...
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
Love like wine --
Love like wine.
A love so sweet
Like grape from the vine,
From the vineyards of passion,
Where the fruits are plump;
Plump and fat,
Growing as the sun glistens on their skin.
No evil can breed in these roots,
For when the lights are dim,
The moonlight is a protector --
And love is never mute.
Love like wine --
Love like mine.
Organic, not fabricated
Though it may not stand the test of time,
For when my body decays,
And goes into another phase
Love cannot be sent --
There is no one to give it.
But may you ever read it,
And forever feel it.
A Sun upon your skin,
To the waves of your soul.
Caressing your heart,
Perfecting its art --
A wine tasting class
To taste a love of the future,
Making love in the future,
To share love of the past.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC
You care and love the right wine,,,
You are great and always fine,,
Navigator of dreams, you love the fresh air...
Your smile is kind and fair...
Douro valley is a sacred place...
You will come, don’t wait...
The vineyards and the olive trees.
Are waiting for you and me.
The wine is in your imagination...
A kind of love and passion.
The universe cares with positive energy...
Red bottle is for you and me..
Kindest regards from the best region for Port wine, Douro Valley..
Victor Marques
Dec 10, 2009
Dec 10, 2009 at 10:49 PM UTC
When she was seven, my grandmother suffered from fever and swollen glands. The doctors believed her tonsils were inflamed, that she needed surgery. Instead, she went to a curandera. The curandera divined that a jealous relative had cast a curse on her and, now, her language of kindness was bound to her throat, the unspoken swelling her glands.
As a child my grandmother spoke to santitos with a voice like a chestnut: ruddy and warm, seeds dropping from her mouth. The santitos would take her words into themselves, her voice growing within them like grapevines.
During the tonsillitis, when the words no longer fell like seeds from her lips, the santito's vineyards of accent and voice grew vapid, dry as a parched mouth. They went to her tongue and asked why silence imprisoned the words of the child, why lumps were present under her chin, why tears drew channels down her cheeks.
I asked my grandmother how her tongue replied. After touching my cheek, she told me she had a dream that night: She was within her lungs and she rose like breath through the moist of her throat. She remembered her tonsils swinging before her like fleshy apples, then a hand taking them into a fist, harvesting their sound. She told me her throat opened in two spots like insect eyes and the names of her children came flying through her wounds like peacocks.
Patting my thigh, she said, "That is why the name of your mother is Maria, because she is a prayer, a song of praise to the Holy Mother."
She told me this, then showed me two scars on her throat—tiny scars, like two eyelids stitched closed.
st - 20 mar 14
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 7:52 PM UTC
that tree on the hill, in the midday sun unfurled
a majestic gnarl of old glory, sustained by a bounty of Time
a thing full of slow thoughts, thoughts that precede our asking
whose branches have forsaken hands
in favor of open arms
that have no word
for love
and
yet
that’s all it does
we sat beneath it’s wholesome fuss of ripe fruit, sinking in.
you in your yoga pants, poaching a dragons egg
in thick blue grass
i in my cups, sipping vineyards of brandy from a deerskin champagne glass
staring at your beautiful joy
the both of us slouching on the couch of Creation
each
with our own
remote.
we were up-close
noses pressed against pollen parasols parading in heat mirage camouflage
holding a moment without pause
we picnic in the thicket of an endless gift
like ants on a blanket
the width of the
world.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 1:37 PM UTC
these faces on the wall that have no eyes,
the young children with blood escaping from their hands
as they pick up a mound of the Earth and throw at genuflected roses.
these battered men in parks searching for light
and my woman is no longer with me.
it’s all vaudeville: this obnoxious working of continuance,
these redundant flutings, these unprecedented fluctuations.
opening the yellow gates to death
as the automobile churns the last of its exhausted snarl.
we are children peering through glass cases
as death laughs at his hopeless clientele,
sad, desolate progenies in working-classes,
in parks, in factories, somewhere along Mendiola,
or just treading the waist-high hellish froths of Dapitan,
there’s always death in the nooks of the quiet
and from where birds stir in sidereal circles, death
with his hands resting on the cage, chases us back to our homes.
death the changing of the gatekeeper.
death the telling machine.
death the dentist.
death my next door neighbor.
death, this boorish broken-winged Maya twitching in front
of my dog’s shadow shot out of the Sun’s shameful recoil.
death, my loud and loutish muse,
death the truant,
death, the copious fog somewhere in Kennon Rd.
death, in my hands through darkness and light,
death through troves of enigma,
death through undisputed clearings,
death the long line of red beads in EDSA,
death the gates of Plaridel,
it’s the moon following you, trailing your measure,
i hold my woman’s used shirt, pick up her photographs
and there’s no tender movement left but the still-seeking lion
prowling the jungles of my heart, seared by lovelorn undoing.
through the bottom of the sky and the unchanging roof-beam,
the weathervane ceases to a sojourn and the wind is trapped
in a place where we cannot utter any word between the gnashing
of our teeth – through the wasted years, through the sleeping in and out
of homes filled with beatings, to cathedrals swollen with tribulations,
and to the vineyards wrung out of wine, my lover, walking through fire,
sound silence.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC