Best Cow Dung Poems
Women in my family
Indeed, are rustic-looking and homely
Wake up at four, of-course, with reluctance
Untie the cattle though with inner resistance
Wash each cow and buffalo so impeccably
Remove the dung as though very faithfully
Bake cow-dung-cakes (for fuel) artistically
See to the household drudgery altruistically
Six of them (as ours is a joint family) do not fail
Fight among them, for no reason, and even assail
Pick lice from each other's head, end-of-the-day
Forgetting all false enmities as though act of a play
Cooking, washing, child-rearing, tale-baring,
Sleep, cuddled together, tiredness overpowering...
24 June 2022
Women in my family Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet
When you take a pile of cow dung
And try to make it sweet
Then shove it down the people’s throat
Tell them they must eat
You’ve screwed up everything you’ve touched
So why should we trust you now
If we put our healthcare in your hands
You’ll screw that up too somehow.
You’ve stripped social security
You’ve destroyed the U.S. Mail
If you touch our freakin’ healthcare
I am sure that you will fail
To try and tell us it’s for our own good
There really is no need
Not coming from politicians
Drunken bums, full of s—t and greed
Yes, I know fetid air has been filtering in
Everyone around chokes on the stench,
sour gin disguised as sweet words
from the mouth of the depraved, loving sin
one can never smother foul barnyard scents
It would take a thousand fragrant candles
to burn the donkey's ass
and get rid of the offensive odor and smelly gas
I sincerely wish this community
could become a site with more class
Will the rancid winds change direction
so the fumes of cow dung
stink up another pasture?
Something needs a serious correction
so, the sweet scent of roses once more
permeates the garden of poetry
poets dancing in harmony galore
Cow dung cakes
some eat from the load
Natural
and weed-free
Yes - both fresh and composted
... mild and sweet in taste
Inspired by:
Jan Allison's poem "I wish you would moooooove on"
Once glorious, but now rusting buildings, lined every dusty road.
Somehow everywhere clung the smell of cow dung.
My heavy bag, a giant rucksack,
Most of it I shipped right back.
I thought there wasn't much glitz or glamour,
And fought rough in a bit of a clamour.
Tuk-Tuk's going tut-tut, the hawkers piercing eyes and traders raise the price.
Welcome to Mumbai!
First, I met Tony, who promised to show me,
All the sights and sounds and where stuff might be found.
He exerted Rupees and expertly duped me,
But for a guided tour, I'd have expected to pay more.
My first "queue" for train tickets,
I was newly in the thick of it,
Could they organise a straight line?
They're walking on the train line!!
The infusion of livestock into the traffic,
My confusion and shock, all of this madness,
Each to their own, but, who the hell planned this?
But first impressions are often misleading,
Best get some rest, a wash and a feeding.
An open mind, that beliefs, often null and blind,
Just might find, can lead toward the fuller life.
From the mountains to the Thar desert,
Everywhere, I found was rather pleasant,
Lived like a king, paid like a peasant.
The colours everywhere and flowers worn in hair,
The spices on display and price you have to pay,
Surprises me to say, she'd grown upon me more each day.
And I had five months to travel through,
I bid a sad goodbye India, I'll see you real soon.
On scented breeze, she'd whispered to me,
As her saffron voice caressed my ears,
She hinted with ease and flickered desire,
While cinnamon curls lingered from her hair,
and nutmeg sweetened my dreams.
_________________________
MANGALYAAN ( VOYAGE TO MARS)
_______________________
It is alright how we came.
But one cannot deny our presence.
We are in the Mars club.
found our way ahead in a bicycle!
No one helped us to be here.
It is our Vedic skills,
made way for cosmic dreams.
If you like it or not,
we made our entry silently.
We may have used a bullock cart,
a buffalo for our space ship.
Cow dung as fuel.
Does it matter?
It is not to conquer Mars.
Just to be there to do our bit.
Entire universe is a puzzling mystery.
The more we are in,
the more we entangle in the puzzle.
Depth is so deep.
Neither end is seen nor beginning.
But there is hope.
Hope in and for humanity.
Please wear your DESIGNER HATS
We wear our turbans.
Please do cartooning,
But do not mock at us in a cartoon.
It is not for mockery but for good taste.
Let us do something,
useful for humanity.
Not to make a Nuclear winter out of greed.
We chant a hymn.
a mantra that reaches beyond galaxies.
A couplet for our liberation.
Om Shanti, shanti, shanti.
(Peace on Us, Peace on us ,Peace on us)
The woman married at a young age
to the eldest son of a farmer-
my maternal uncle and neighbor.
Usually, she woke up early at the crow's caw
and swept the dirt floor of the house with a broom
often wiping it with water and a nura ( wet cloth )
After that she took a bath, changed her clothes
and wiped with water the surface before the holy Basil(Tulsi)
in the middle of the courtyard
as well as the surfaces at the portico and inside the house
where the family Deities traditionally reside.
After these tasks, she prayed the Deities and holy Basil
while burning mekruk(,an incense).
The prayer was once again repeated at dusk
lighting a lantern or candle.
As a routine she grinding,hand-pounding
and flapping paddy,(sometimes cutting firewood)
alone or with a sister- in -law,
cooking food( burning firewood) and serving the family members,
cleaning the kitchen and utensils after the food served.
After these she washed clothes for the family members.
And in the afternoon she wove clothes
at the fly scuttle loom in the outhouse.
Besides, she helped the neighbours in times of need.
She treated her father-in-law and mother-in-law with devotion,
regarded her husband's younger siblings
as if they were her own children.
Many children were born to her
but, she died prematurely at the age of seventy.
After her death I sometimes remember her
as one of the symbols of traditional housewives
of the old past .
.
There's a cow pie in the yard.
So what do you think?
Is it bull?
(Cow pie is American slang for cow dung & "bull" is the
abbreviated form of a vulgar word meaning something foolish
or useless. Anyway, it's a play on words that I hope translates
ok for the non native English speakers here)
For Dr. Ram Mehta's Contest on Quinzaine Poems
and now for PD's "any poem under 5 lines #1" - Poetry Contest
Do pigs go moo?
Do cows go oink?
Do chickens go cock a doodle do?
Do sheep wear sweaters?
Do Alligators know all the letters?
Of the alphabet noodles in soup?
Do Birds have nests of feathered gold?
Do crows get mad, when a penguin is sold?
Do Ravens really read Edgars Poetry?
Do Little Doctors help baby animals?
Do they talk to doctors or do little chatter?
Why all these questions surely must matter
Do roasters wake up at the setting of the sun?
Do pigs have wings, or is that all cow dung?
Falling from the sky up high
Seagulls must laugh when one of us cries
Now if a little one here or way over there
I have made you laugh on the silliest of dares
Then off we go to the aquarium and zoo
Why we are off to visit with Winnie the Pooh!
An old man went
Out deer hunting
And shot a horse
When the neighbor
Realized that his
Horse was dead
He went to the man
And asked him
Why he shot his horse
The old man fell into his yard chair
And stared ahead
“I shot your horse John”
“You shot my horse
Frank and now he’s laying over there
In a pile of cow dung!”
He took off his glasses
and rubbed his eyes
and began to weep
The neighbor shook his head
And walked to his dead horse
He took off his cap and began to weep
Soon the old man came over
And saw that he was weeping
They looked at the horse and wept together
He wasn’t just a horse
He was my friend
He was my family
After a while frank
Came back with a shovel
And looked at his neighbor
He began to dig
But soon fell over.
And laid in the dirt
He left Frank where fell
next to the dead horse
And returned with a tractor
When it was all over
He hoisted the horse into the hole
And covered him up.
He shut off the tractor
And came to look
At his buried horse
They stood in silence
And stared at the earth
And Soon they wept
Frank looked
At his neighbor
And sobbed
He told him
to go home and frank
Slowly walked away
John picked up his shovel
and shouted his name
and held it out for him
He walked back
And took the shovel
“I’m sorry about your horse John”
John watched him walk away
And looked at the cows in the field
after while he started the tractor and drove away
He promised to love me forever
Then again he was just being clever
He took back his love
So I gave him a shove
Headfirst in cow dung-my endeavor!
** for Indian Giver contest
sponsored by(Destroyer ((Poet
1.
Tired and desperate,
I walked out of the house
and out of poverty!
2.
The housefly perches
again on the cow dung
and back to our food!
3.
The sun sets by itself
Leaving nothing behind,
Not even a shadow.
4.
The sun rises this morning
Frowning at yesterday
and its sins.
5.
Birthdays,
Boys drink to stupor
Beautiful girls hide behind makeups.
6.
A green snake
Fork-tongued, licking from my tap
I, holding a bucket and a towel helplessly.
7.
The mosquito,
Pot-bellied from my blood,
Escapes through my clutched fingers!
The Sound of Distant Ankle Bells
Memories of those delicate tinkling bells,
casually fastened around calloused feet,
take hold of my waking moments,
and fling my thoughts back to a distant time,
where folk-songs were heartily sung,
joyful, yet hopelessly out of rhyme.
I barely saw her, a construction labourer perhaps,
hauling bricks, cement, anything, on a scorching Delhi day,
while in the semi-shade of a Gulmohar tree, her infant silently lay.
A cacophony of thoughts such as these swirl around,
yanking me away from the now, to my cow-dung littered childhood playground.
Now, a lifetime of displacement has hushed the jangling chorus of the past,
to a faint trickle of sounds, as distant as an ocean heard inside tiny sea-shells,
and,
I know, that the orchestral nostalgic crescendo, rises, dips, and swells,
as tantalisingly near, yet a world of time away, as were the tinkling of her ankle-bells.
I need to write some deep
Stuff
Like how people do not know how
Important it is
To
Know yourself
And
Think for yourself
And know that you
Are what you are
And even if they clone your cell
You are still uniquely you
Even if you are a bee
Accidentally landing on manure
Instead of the flower petal-
Off from which you fell
You are still a bee.
How deep is that-
You are not a fly
You are still a bee.
Find a stench that
Hallucinates strong
Like musk.
I need to write
Some deep stuff
Like ok they might
Chase, you away from the
Hive
You can still thrive-
Fly, bee- because you can!
Not because you smell
Differently.
Pollinate a mushroom
Growing on cow dung
Psychedelic mycelium
They will welcome you in
As they dance to your
Radiating colors.
Magic mushroom dust
And the scent of perfume
Yeah, that is some deep stuff.
The first day
God came face to face.
Spring, in front of the tree
That had forgotten roots and leaves.
The slender note of complaint
Made to its friends
By the cloud that got lost.
The goddess’ voice
Unheard by any but water.
The flower garden
In front of which
Grass grew with abandon.
The darkened house,
Floor smeared with cow dung.
A cluster of moments
Of butterflies cavorting in the rain.
The playhouse
Made of the wings of fireflies and moths.
The seaside
Where camels enjoy the breeze.
The forgotten oyster
The fry left
Under the sand.
The praying hands
Of date palms
Which looked upon earth from above.
The wedding night
Inside the elephant shelter
Where ants frolic.
A pinch of beaten rice,
Cooked, using only the twigs the pigeons brought.
The anthology of words
Read and re-read
In a hand-written letter.
The translation of the moment
God couldn’t quite get.
What could it have been?
Covered daughter with kisses.
She wept, alarmed.
I heard the voice of God telling daughter,
”I didn’t grasp anything either!”