Best Farmed Poems

I don't look at stars anymore.
As a boy I would sneak out into the night
to hear the horses and barn mice
chewing over their hurts and simple hopes.

I could smell the waking dreams
of dogs and cats.
a nocturnal alchemy I considered
to be an extension of my integral...

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British wanted profit
British wanted new land
Land rich in resources
Land of ivory and coffee
Coffee British could sell
Coffee Kenyans could not 
Could not retrieve freedom
Could not reason with British
British took over land
British farmed fertile soil
Soil was Kenyan birthright
Soil of Kenyan ancestors
Ancestors buried here
Ancestors grieved for living
Living like...

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Save your soul in a pickle jar
Wishes will get you only so far
Today is yesterday in review
Will tomorrow bring anything new?

Saints are sinners that God forgave
Dead bodies are farmed into the grave
You give and take and take and give
You live to die and die to...

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Long ago, a girl and boy met walking through a pumpkin field.
She laughed and ran, he dared to chase, and neither ever paused to yield.

The boy was rich, and she was poor - for this they did not care.
For what was fortune or the lack,...

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I was working for Jack Daymond, a farmer,
who farmed livestock, potatoes and vines.
I s’pose he had over two hundred cattle.
The spuds and the grapes grew in lines. 

Oh gawd! Jack had me slaving ‘til sunset,
keeping his farm spick and span.
Jack kept his eyes on the...

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Spring speaks of promise beginning anew,
While winter winds whistle of being true.
Summer shouts like ferocious violins,
Buzzing warmth of Sun delivers up-chins.
Fall's voice is favoured, it's song's not of loss,
Her trust is heard as though hallowed glass-gloss,
Her breathing, laboured, is suggestion-filled.
Taste of her drink from the...

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Grandma was a firefighter woman
For most of the 1960s--
When she was already in her sixties
You see, around about 1961
A brush fire almost burned down	
Kanarraville—that little Utah farming town.

The men farmed or worked outside of town,
And there were no firehouses very near.
So the postmistress said “Sisters,...

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You can 
drive your whole life 
not look upon the face
of harbingers in spring wet earth. 
Remembering the ephemeral warm
Mediterranean summers
clean Petrich or fresh rain 
bucolic life 
setting.

Yielding 
a nostalgic 
propinquity city's
efflorescence dress brick building. 
The epiphany of an old church as 
it sings the...

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BELIZEAN BLEND

In the beginning it was the Yucatec, the Mopan and  Kekchi  as well
Who came from the steppes of Asia where nomads dwell
They fished and farmed milpas, in paradise; away from hell
Some building great civilizations that, for many reasons, eventually fell

Then came the...

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Alms Inn, there is the place again, and here
I, far away, muse in the house I grew
O this village of my love, has grown too
The golden hills with lilacs filled, the sweet
Soft of morning dew, and my dusty feet
Leaving his brighter sun for school and...

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Adorned with shells 
Beautiful enough
to be on a necklace.
Faces and bodies
Ugly enough to be
"Movie monsters."

Shells that dot the lawn with
Tan, pink, browns, black and stripes
Desperately try to protect the delicate
"Movie monsters" within from
Mother and human nature.
I carry them off to a
Temporary safety 
Whenever I can.

Stuck...

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Part I.

Harvest time was winding down, 
I was taking lunch in town, 
After spending six long hours plowing stubble.
Washing up I met a man, 
Guessed he was a harvest hand, 
His combine crew, he said, was fixin’ to move out.
He was wearing dungarees, 
We exchanged...

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The Elephant Gift.
upon the elephant rode a boy prince,
his royal command, he was there to evince. 
dark with grace and dripping with youth.
bringing his men, his crown and his couth. 
town after town he strode fierce through the gates.
and any detractors were left to cruel...

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He’d just turned forty, a happy single daddy
He had sunshine days and his life on track
His two girls and him, he love’s his lit’l family
He would never even think of ever looking back
Cuz’ his two girls were growing  - way to fast

His days were...

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I read the title as
U - nite- as
three syllables - hard I

And I marveled that a female poet would 
write of U Johnny
and looked hurriedly down the page
hoping to read

Of your years leading the Colts
(who were in Baltimore then)
on gimpy knees and guts
when a player...

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