Best Clods Poems
A country yearns industry
from assiduous minds revolutionary,
cities conceived with mind set and skill
yet lay insipid in the body of Britannia
those in need of life’s blood,
akin to human organs
served only; by arterial veins.
The first sod to lift an unfolding nation
the first cut the inauguration the call,
have a thought pleasure seeker
enduring men with pick, shovel, some did fall,
his sweat given freely or not as the case may be
to mingle with earth removed
or deep within copse ghyll may well be for a tree.
The Dales emptied, of its men
famine ravaged Ireland too,
drawn towards the rush of new born adrenaline
a creation of foresight
when the need for this an artery to flow
through lock, tunnel aqueduct,
transforming her virgin land
albeit out of trades of old,
an era steeped in tradition
tools an extension: of one’s own hand.
Adverse weather geography
this realm having found fame,
complexity from above, below,
the elements the environment
nothing to stand in obsessions way,
from soil to solid rock, energy sapping
clods of clay negotiated all
amidst many tongues, yet same laborious conclusion
wheeled away by the barrowman;
horse and cart.
This precious land host to many heroes
those upon columns stand tall,
our sons live on in remembrance
a memorial for them all,
so to this symbolic structure
craved through hostile terrain,
a burly navvies sculptured cleft
within the very earth
his body one day to lay.
Oh the city Leeds, city Liverpool and those in between
the bargees upon the cut there now do dwell
living within the ideals of another time sown
but of ease it is with just a memory
conservation the historic debt on loan!
© Harry J Horsman 2013
Kiss The Rain
I dug the earth with sharpened blade
I turned it with that hefty spade
For hours my arms did sweat and toil
To prepare for you the soil
I made it smooth with my long rake
The stones remove and clods to break
I work to make your little heads
Warm and comfy in your beds
A furrow straight and deep I draw
And place you tender in that score
I cover you, make sure your firm
Hope your safe there with the worm
And so for now my toil is done
Its up to you the rain and sun
For I have done all that I know
To encourage you to grow
From time to time I look to see
If you have broken through for me
For I would love to see again
You soak the sun and kiss the rain
R D Seal 25 Feb 13
SMART MAN
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of the earth stick together?
Job 38:37b-38 NIV
SMART MAN
Smart man, God gave
you hands - to fill a water jug,
to sprinkle the garden.
Who has bought powdered water,
wrung out the rain from a cloud,
picked the dewdrops, like petals
from the sky? Smart man, who?!
Smart man, who turns to dust
after one hundred years,
who waters your grave, after
the mourners walk away?
How heavy, the water jars
of heaven? The angels huge
with wings, kick them over
at God’s command, not man’s.
Are we just clods, that stick
together. We are set to flight
only at the Lord’s command,
indefensible. Our tongues
cannot stick out to catch
a rain that does not exist.
Resist the Lord, smart man?
Is he not a friend? Is he not
the living water, the living end?
6/21/2022
And the Word became flesh,
And among us dwelt.
Just as then,everything is done
to not make our hearts melt.
We adore phony creatures that
will never save us.
God's Son has been replaced by
a reindeer with a red nose.
On Jesus, oh no! On Him the
door we happily close.
For we humans believe we know
more than God.
Of Scripture, we snicker avoid like
not so innocent clods!
We wonder and fret, why the world
gets stranger!
Perhaps it is to silence the cries from
the manger?
I hope you find the true reason for
December the twenty-fifth.
And stop adoring store-created
creatures that are only a myth!
Innocent, perhaps, or as cute as
they maybe,
Neither, elves, Rudolph nor Santa
will being us to eternity.
The churches are locked the night
the child of God is born?
For this poetess, it makes my sad
heart mourn!
Presents will be opened with great
joy and glee.
Rare, so rare, is the mention of God's
Son, who came to earth for Thee!
Prayers before dinners are rushed
through at best.
In a big hurry to stuff our faces with
a bountiful food fest.
We put out cookies and milk, telling our
children to "believe!"
In elves, a deer and an very obese
man with red sleeves?
How many homes at least have
a manger?
Very scarce is this seen, we prefer a
world filled with atheism, arrogance and
danger.
Take a good look at all the freedoms
you have lost,
And still, you don't understand, it's
all about giving up God at cost!
I wish this message reaches just
one!
And am fearless to bless you with the
forbidden greeting, "Merry Christmas"~
on this birth of God's only Son!
~~Merry Christmas~~
12-20-2020
The Churches are empty!
But the bars are chock full?
Walmart, almost a new religion
unto itself.
It's parishioners, adoring cheap
junk on its shelves!
Few would even think to contribute
to any ministry.
But spend thousands on hair dyes,
and cosmetic dentistry.
We adore our bodies more than God.
He is old-hat, while we are so mod.
We attend sporting events, like mad,
true addictive clods.
The Bible? Oh, my, that is terribly old
school.
We think Google is God and provides
us with ultimate truth and rules.
5/9/2019
Talking to Sara...
Why me
the world weighs heavily on our souls,
though we are encased in blubber,
our suffering life swiftly unfolds,
the book is balanced brother,
it seems unfair, for we aren't told,
the reason, pain an suffering,
but logic says, the reason is of old,
a curse endured with blubbering, (much crying)
man molded by the thought of God,
fine tuned by cause and effect,
we are little more than earthly clods,
brought here to earn respect!
seek the reason for your fall,
personality may tell?
see Saint Peter at the wall,
don't send me back to hell:(
Don Johnson
She makes an early showing,
her warm breath blowing;
an Eastern sunrise glowing,
flowers up and growing.
Melted icebergs flowing,
men on tractors sowing;
loose dirt clods throwing,
barnyard roosters crowing.
Suddenly, it's snowing;
frosty winds now mowing.
Wily smile, all-knowing;
fleetingly, she's going.
Spring . . . such a tease
Bright daffodils adorn the ground
And rise where winter clods were found;
The air is full of scent and song,
(To God both flowers and birds belong);
Sorrows shaking heart and mind
Fall, as blossoms, in the wind.
Now Spring has come, and winter's past
Oh do not pass us by so fast!
A two-story house stands silent,
no longer prideful of its bay window,
running water in the kitchen,
and a shower in the basement,
or of having erased memories
of shotgun houses with no heat
and back-yard water pumps.
Its blank windows stare
onto fields where cotton once grew
tall and green; where stinging dirt clods
flew from our brother's straight arm,
whose aim my sister and I could never match.
Its closed face once laughed
at red noses, dust-crusted necks, muscles
tightening under skin worn waxed-paper thin
by twelve-hour days under burning skies
and the bitter taste of ashes
blown in by a greedy little weevil.
Our minds hung heavy
with hard-packed dirt and skimpy crops
as our hoes wielded strength and hope,
our toil fueled by dreams
of emerald fields and rain-kissed rows,
our memories ripe with younger days
when we swam in creeks, bucketed
minnows, and climbed trees
in search of possum grapes.
They’ve found a body in my back yard. I
imagine what a dead house would look
like. A stillborn Brownstone with its Jurassic
sandstone hiccupping fossils and family
feuds. Terrace houses would ripple rumour
and rife gossip from one mirrored house to the
next, those prison bars on pavements. A Bungalow
would be simpler: no basement layers or levels
of intrigue, no Who before the Dunnit. Now I
imagine what type of house would best cover a
crime…. no room in High Rise or Loft - the body
would just float, just hang there. A quickly
erected Tent could hide disturbed earth; or a
chugging Barge to clog up clay and clods of mud
over not yet decayed fingers and thumbs. A
Farmhouse has a credible need of a pyre like
an Igloo’s plausible need for ice. A Tudor revival
wouldn’t want anything of the sort. Then I imagine
how the rooms would react: bathroom tiles cracking
into brave smiles and kitchens hiding knives in fear of
another attack; staircases sagging like the confused
brow of a mourning man, a living room offended by
the very antonym of itself. I imagine what a
guilty house would look like… crocodile tears from
a Pacific Lodge and panicked lies of a Flounder, the
subtle reveals of a Dingbat. I doubt a Shotgun
would even try though, nor the Creole Cottage; just
accept its racial profiling. They’ve found a body in
my back yard. So, am I a church now I have a graveyard?
5 BILLION POOR
5 BILLION POOR FORSOOTH DEMAND,
EQUALITY THROUGHOUT THE LAND,
MORE THAN A MILLION DOLLARS IN THE BANK IS GREED,
MORALITY GETS EVERYONE A FEED,
LETS VOTE ON THIS REFERENDUM,
MORAL QUESTION OF THE DEED,
LETS SHARE ALL OF PIGGIES GREED,
LEAVE IT A MILLION, ONE,
ALL EQUAL UNDER THE SOD,
GREEDY ONES ARE SELFISH CLODS,
LETS FIX THE PLANET, GIVE A NOD,
NO POINT ACCEPTING GREED,
5 BILLION WANT THIS, GOD....
YES INDEED. Don
Minority groups control the world?
Why should we the multi-dudes, of multitudes,
of more than 5 billion VOTERS put up with the greedy rich,
we don't have to, we have Facebook :}
to vote Nasty, rob your neighbour GREED out.
Are we mentally, morally, strong enough?
We must Do it, but Keep the old system running everywhere !
But, no one individual, to earn more than a million dollars US!
Moral redirection of the wealth of greed to worthy beneficiaries ,
eg: FAIR paid for work in the 3rd world no longer 3rd world nations! Every family to eventually have voter access to Facebook to vote on every important outcome on the planet...
Great living conditions for every person on the planet!
All great causes to be voted for on Facebook, majority rules!
Without Opression no need for people to leave their Homeland.
Except when on visiting during holidays:}
When the opressed Minorities have equality, and are treated fairly,
when all are content, Utopia is here...
We are such weak brained wonders,
that we allow psychologists to alter the world?
why would you go away from a brutal system that works?
to a pathetic system that doesn't work,
humans are sometimes like ANIMALS who need discipline,
without discipline there is no control,
where there is no respect there is anarchy,
YES morality is long dead,
We need to go back to a system that worked.
Some folks say that you’re toxic,
and destroying all the world.
Some folks say that you’re reckless,
and just want to feel up girls.
I think you’re like a fire,
a great tool in the right hands,
but able to turn quickly
and sear the foolish man.
Once upon a time we knew
what boys would be trained to be.
We taught them to wield the flame
that is masculinity.
Those who would do without it,
are brainless, spineless clods;
Life is not a therapy session,
it’s a fight against long odds!
To fight that fight without it
never ends all that well.
The vicious kill the peaceable types,
or corrupt them into their hell.
Without a strong mind standing
on lines drawn in the dirt,
we'd lose our lives or lose our souls
to the monsters of the Earth.
And let’s not forget the home life,
the one that we know best.
We’ve got young boys playing gangster,
or becoming men without chests.
Going hard to both extremes,
unaware of the middle path,
without the old code’s guidance,
they’re either lazy or full of wrath.
And men who once built things,
now sit home and get cash,
not ashamed at getting handouts,
their souls atrophy quite fast.
Other ‘men’ still make money,
spreading buzzwords, lies, and fear.
They feel no shame because honor
to them is dumb and weird.
So to you I am asking this,
though the softer types may squeal,
your presence is requested,
your fury, passion, zeal.
Your role here is important,
without you we cannot be.
I’ll teach my kids to now your name,
to know masculinity.
Green eggs and ham I am
Denny's new Grand Slam
Egg whites wriggling like a clam
Yellow yokes oozing over the dam
Ham clods denser than Spam
Coated with a varnish of Pam
Gratuitous cholesterol by the gram
Down unthrottled hatch cram
If green terds your jaded colon jam
And amber waves of gout bloat each gam
To Dr Seus's gluteal factory scram
His stool abusing suppositories are a scam
But his rendering vises are no sham
So with leased enema your red ass ram
Till the ivy clumps ooze through your tram
O! Afterthought, Thou art a stern Taskmaster!
Thy Glare’s as gentle, as is Sun on Snow!
O! Heart! Would She have stayed, if I had asked her?
Admittedly, there’s no grimmer disaster,
Than sudden fury rupturing House and Row!
O! Afterthought, Thou art a stern Taskmaster!
Amid the clods and falling dust and plaster,
Will we know we are reaping what we Sow?
O! Heart! Would She have stayed, if I had asked her?
Aimed at my Heart: she ran faster, and faster!
(The storm outstripped, no matter where she’d go.)
O! Afterthought, Thou art a stern Taskmaster!
Dim hope! I pulled her under an alabaster
Fountain, round which the dusky funnel did flow,
O! Heart! Would She have stayed, if I had asked her?
When all had passed, still was the oleaster…
But she lay still, felled by a mighty blow!
O! Afterthought, Thou art a stern Taskmaster!
O! Heart! Would She have stayed, if I had asked her?
What My Youngest Son Taught Me
By Curtis Johnson
My wife worked at a hospital at night, and I did not want her to drive herself.
Our youngest son had just gotten his drivers license. So he was very excited about driving her to work. Invariably, after he dropped her off, he would never return straight home.
I could not understand why it took so long for him to return. After he returned one night, I could not resist asking him about his goings and comings. His reply to me was not what I was expecting. He said that he visited some friends, and then what he said to me went something like this: Dad, you need to be more flexible and do things sometimes that are not a part of the path and plan.
Perhaps I already knew that, but it certainly was not the way I had lived my life.
But from that night forward, thanks to my son, I was compelled to reconsider the goings and comings of my life. That night, my youngest son planted the seeds that broke through the hard clods of inflexibility in my life. In so doing, I was freshly renewed and enriched.
cj02142016