Best Granary Poems
Irelands' famine, England chose to ignore
The potato blight caused devastation
Michael stole corn from a granary store
To stop loved ones dying from starvation.
Arrested and charged with theft from the crown
Judge passed sentence and he got twenty years
Outside prison walls in old Galway town
His wife Mary and family shed tears.
Ne'er again see the fields of Athenry
Sent to prison thousands of miles away
He would ne'er again see the free birds fly
From that harsh prison in Botany Bay.
The ship sailed that day on the evening tide
His dreams for the future had all but died.
Written July 26th 2019.
Inspired by the song 'The Fields of Athenry ' The music and lyrics were composed by a Dublin folk singer Pete St John.
From far a cool wind gently blows,
There's a pleasantness in the air.
Harsh summer heat steadily slows.
The leaves of trees, new colours wear.
Autumn has come in time to cheer
From far a cool wind gently blows
The season brings everything dear
Stock in squirrel’s granary grows
Leaves fall ending their sprightly shows.
Some go fluttering in the air
From far a cool wind gently blows
Some trees are going starkly bare
Flowers begin to fade and die,
As the season’s about to close
Many birds in flock southward fly.
From far a cool wind gently blows
there is a certain taste to Autumn
almost alien to Summer's fruition of life
it is a different celebration
where the living having succeeded
fruits succumb to ripened apples
the hazel sweetens its core
gourds of every color
deck the leaves now browning
life begins its crawl into hibernation
the breath of the cold to come
whispers in trees where leaves
plummet to the end of their use
it heralds a job well accomplished
a time to celebrate the long journey
that burst thru the mud and ice
as Winter left its' toll
and Spring began its wondrous labors
Autumn is a time to rejoice
dream of the snow crocus
that return year after year
that dutiful call of God
Earth still has a purpose
where mortality labors into immortal
the composts stand ready
to urge the first blade of grass
to struggle and greet the dawn
nourished by life's rotting flesh
Autumn is death knocking at the door
reminding the granary stored
is the duty of God's gift
to the seasons yet to come
OKC 9/22
“Wandering through empty and crowded streets with no destination in sight and sleeping under the sky with the fire burning inside was my life, the life of a vagabond. Survival is a funny game and life is an endless odyssey for survival” ~ By Poet
Homeless, a wanderer all his life.
An orphan, he was raised in the streets.
Mongrel dogs and gypsies were his company.
He had wild days and dolorous times.
At nights, he curled up on street corners,
Had brawls with other street children.
But as he grew up, he began nursing a dream,
To own a home and no more be a vagabond.
He took up odd jobs and worked day in and out.
Over time, against heavy odds
A little hovel, he did build,
In a verdant stretch of fertile land
Off the noisy, frenzied crowd
With sheaves of hay, he thatched its roof.
With reed and bamboo, its walls were made.
With mud and charcoal, its floor was glazed.
With wooden planks, its entrance he laid.
At dusk, when birds to their nests depart,
And beasts, to their covert burrows and dens,
After the day’s toil, weary and weak,
He curls into the cozy comfort of his home.
Through months and years, it gave him succor.
Sheltered him from storm and rain.
Made him differ from the gypsy tribe.
Lent him a footing in this populous world.
He wove around it many a dream.
With frugal care, his needs he met.
Like a squirrel stocking nuts and grains,
In it's secret granary for the rainy days,
He saved all that he had earned,
For a life to be lived later in bliss.
But alas!
His haven lies so derelict!
Its very foundation raced to the ground.
The once beautiful stretch of land,
Robbed of its greenery and grace!
The eviction squad usurped his land,
Hurling him down to the streets!
Making him once again a vagabond…
Bewildered, failing to budge an inch,
Like a boat, midway stranded in sea, he stood.
But his resilient spirits, to him affirmed,
‘Never defeated, though destroyed'
Soon the mud hovel, to a palatial mansion turned.
Where he envisioned himself as king of the land.
His smiling progeny picking fruits from his orchard,
And his cattle chewing cud in the shade of trees.
Why scoff it as the fancy of a fevered mind?
Oh! But to dream is every man's right.
Summer is over and the farmer now rests from his toil,
Having labored hard to wrest his crops from the fruitful soil.
Fall has arrived and all the crops have been gathered in.
The corn, wheat and soy beans lie dormant in the granary bin.
It was a good year - his farm was favored with abundant rain.
Thankfully, there was no wind or hail, an anxious farmers' bane!
Pecks of onions, pertaters and carrots are preserved in the cellar,
Along with bushels of resplendent apples - golden, red and yeller!
The hogs are ready for market but he'll keep a pair for meat,
And he'll butcher a steer or so to ensure there's enough to eat.
His wife jammed mason jars full of beets, termaters and peas,
And there are a few honeycombs filched from the gullible bees!
He and the boys used crosscut saws to hew cords of wood for heating,
To warm their Victorian home from the winter's snows and sleeting.
There are jugs of cider to sip and ears of popping corn to pop,
As the family enjoys a roaring fire to reminisce with lore to swap!
The humble farmer was so grateful that on his knees he knelt,
To offer his gratitude to the Lord, a simple prayer most heartfelt.
A benevolent harvest moon smiled on the pastoral scene below,
Seemingly to bless the peaceful panorama with its mellow glow!
As I stand before this old, dilapidated house,
A structure fast decaying and about to crumble,
With its walls painted grey and white,
And the plaster bearing cracks and marks,
Memories leap out,
From the moss-grown crevices of my mind,
Like snakes uncoiling, rather like bees swarming,
Fragmented, scented, and sour!
I remember my old maternal uncle,
Who had turned a widower at forty-one,
The presiding deity of a joint family of sixteen.
Most of the time he sprawled in the armchair,
In the enclosed patio of this big house.
In the living room was an old grandfather clock
Ticking away like the faint heartbeat
Of that decadent house with crumbling plaster
He had seen heydays with many ceremonies of great fanfare,
When the house used to board all kith and kin,
And the granary was full of paddy and tons of black gold
But as time slowly weakened his torso
The house too lost its onetime splendor.
His children got scattered far and wide.
They went to hoard fortunes abroad.
But grand uncle refused to move away.
One day he left the house orphaning it for ever.
Now the house is sadly left to total decay.
Its life gone, its soul frozen,
A fragment of an old memory.
Though once I thought I had escaped,
The compulsions of the past
Now I discern, I am still pinioned by it!
As I stand before this house, my ears perk up,
For the lovely sounds this house once produced
And pine for the love
That once so luxuriously bloomed around!
There sat in opulent xanadu, the
demagogue of empirical hedonism,
his granary once fuelled regal reign of epicureanism:
gregarious, restive, much-awaited successor of imperial dominion,
neurotic, obstinate, was the cynosure of cynicism.
The eldest child of Duke and Dutchess of York, erstwhile Prince of Wales,
the proclaimed young heir, stood far from the course of sceptical euphemism;
The heir apparent had a historical encounter with Wallis Warfield Simpson by fatalism,
by wooing Wallis, the royal blood encountered, clangorous cynical criticism.
The resultant mayhem broke, the blue- blood became the bottleneck of idealism;
sagacious, was brooding strategies to be the prototype of unprecedented heroism.
The proclaimed marriage faced vehement oppositions:
encompassing : religious, political, legal and moral objections.
The outright denial to accept Wallis as the king's consort, broke the anticipated rebellion,
Edward's refusal to give her up, led to his final abdication.
When was quite apparent, he could not marry his beloved Simpson,
finally settled to rebuke the throne from etched imperialism as emancipation.
The man of the hour was then entitled "the Duke of Windsor", a transformation stunned the world and wrote an unprecedented statement in chronicle after abdication.
Edward VIII, once epitome of monarchism, became an ideal icon of asceticism.
A sybarite, turned commoner by deserting the successive chair of the british kingdom to wed his ladylove;
a tale of unprecedented impeccable loyalism.
The abdicator's epitaph on Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore,
is still bearing in indelible transcription,
the testimony of an uncustomary love saga of renunciation.
An epoch making transformation, decades have ever witnessed from iconic monarchism to transcendental loyalism:
through unprecedented renouncement
of the bequeathed throne
to array chronicle's unrivalled iconoclasm.
All Rights Reserved © SILPIKA KALITA
underneath
his trenchcoat
he was
in possession
of a bent quill
he used it to tickle
words out of his
avaries of birds
moon-eyed and
sucker-punched
they adored the
dripping honey
he spooned
into their
unworldly
wide-open bills
his avarice
for swollen
notoreity
observed
by the dark
night-eyed
hunters
while he,
unsuspecting,
stalked
newly commissioned
clean and unmarked boxes
with his know-it-all
best bumbling
holy-roller turns
the nights
are full of obsessed
decent hunters
lit matches
with an arsenal
of thoughts
and a granary
of words
ready to burn
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Dark Skinned Lady. the ever poised legendary beauty, granary of compassion & culture whose stunning reign sparkles the night.
Dark Skinned Lady. comandress of matriotic forces, the earthquake that shakes the pillars of racism & sexism the stream that feeds liberating consciousness
Dark skinned lady. epicenter of the ripples of Africanism. Divinity of a soul tranced by a rhythm, a rhythm forged by the beat of a drum, the drum pumping life into the veins of my Africa!
A fly and ant, upon a sunny bank,
Discuss'd the question of their rank.
'O Jupiter!' the former said,
'Can love of self so turn the head,
That one so mean and crawling,
And of so low a calling,
To boast equality shall dare
With me, the daughter of the air?
In palaces I am a guest,
And even at thy glorious feast.
Whene'er the people that adore thee
May immolate for thee a bullock,
I'm sure to taste the meat before thee.
Meanwhile this starveling, in her hillock,
Is living on some bit of straw
Which she has labour'd home to draw.
But tell me now, my little thing,
Do you camp ever on a king,
An emperor, or lady?
I do, and have full many a play-day
On fairest bosom of the fair,
And sport myself upon her hair.
Come now, my hearty, rack your brain
To make a case about your grain.'
'Well, have you done?' replied the ant.
'You enter palaces, I grant,
And for it get right soundly cursed.
Of sacrifices, rich and fat,
Your taste, quite likely, is the first;--
Are they the better off for that?
You enter with the holy train;
So enters many a wretch profane.
On heads of kings and asses you may squat;
Deny your vaunting I will not;
But well such impudence, I know,
Provokes a sometimes fatal blow.
The name in which your vanity delights
Is own'd as well by parasites,
And spies that die by ropes--as you soon will
By famine or by ague-chill,
When Phoebus goes to cheer
The other hemisphere,--
The very time to me most dear.
Not forced abroad to go
Through wind, and rain, and snow,
My summer's work I then enjoy,
And happily my mind employ,
From care by care exempted.
By which this truth I leave to you,
That by two sorts of glory we are tempted,
The false one and the true.
Work waits, time flies; adieu:--
This gabble does not fill
My granary or till.'
Jean de La Fontaine. Translated From French By Elizur Wright 1882.
That day I died
He tore open his chest
Removed his heart,
and pasted that of a lion
With precision, landed on me
But the world looked on
That day I died
I ran to the mosque
Allah was not there
I tiptoed to the church
Christ was not on the Cross
To the Grotto I hurried
Virgin Mary was missing
I galloped to ancestral shrine
The Living Dead were on recess
But the world looked on
That day I died
He grabbed my calabashes
and drank all the milk
While licking me crazily
With his hollowed horn
in the bushes and hills of Juba
But the world looked on
That day I died
On the ground he held me
Like a submissive goat
being converted into soup
With ferocity of a lunatic
He tore open my granary of life
Pelting off like flu the fruit
Yet the world looked on
That day I died
All Round River and waterfall
Land of the harvest,
This is our village
Betelnut and betel's garden.
Home home the granary
Haystack and cowherd,
This is our village
Magw Bwisagu cheerfully and welcome to.
Water from the well water to drag up
In the house bring on waist wrap,
This is our village
As is family.
Early morning wake up the chicken
Harvest in the land of to go,
This is our village
Spade and solution of farming to do.
And so the garden vegetables everywhere
Lai, lapha, mula and etc.
This is our village
Vegetables are not lacking.
Temple, church and bathou festival
Holy, our place of worship
This is our village of bodos
Goibari taijowbari kantalbari, and like the names.
Love affairs
Within the heart not only love
Depth of ocean space far
Cumulative wish compressive being,
Can stay longer longer
Granary of love, tremendous wide,
One can stick all over life
Melodious love heart rending wails
All immerse from the heart
Those big people have immensely dignified
Lay out of heart on never ending praise
If wished to hide it gives you place
When to evoke reject like stale
So generous it is like things
Never cares it benefits or harms
Those mind which can love to all
In next time becomes deadlier killer
Dumb it is, stuns again
Whatever you beg it pours full
No sense it has
Bumps in the head
Sometimes fatal open
It likes killings, failure to all thinking
Self is monarch of all
Sneaks so soon if smells wrong
Elopes from lovelier claim
No one can define secrets of love affairs
Those lovers have hid along the lives,
Love affairs are amazing games.
I’ve written on so many themes
Of one sort or another
The only thing I know for sure
I’ll never be a mother
These words of mine are all the kids
I’d ever want to father.
Sometimes they don’t say all they should
But still they’re worth the bother
If I could find a word somewhere
To rhyme Chicanery
‘Twould even give me pleasure
Were I in a granary
So just before I go to bed
I take my pen to write
In hopes some seizure in my head
May somehow spark a light
No they’re not all epiphanies
And rarely erudite
These ideas I’m so quick to seize
While in my bed at night
But I’ll keep counting syllables
In hopes someday I might
Find just the ones to fill the bill
With words that rhyme just right
Now painting pictures with my words
Is not what I am after
I want the rhythm and the rhyme
To lead some one to laughter
Just a giggle or a chuckle
At the end or at the start
Would warm the coldest cockle
Of this thing I call my heart.
Just another Warrenpiece
Oh, little chirpy squeaking squirrel
I see you always dressed in grey apparel
Swift as an arrow you can run
Watching you scamper the tree is fun
Is it when you are joyous and hale,
That you are seen flicking your bushy tail?
Along the ground and over the bough you scurry,
Darting up and down in great hurry.
Why do you arch your back and sniff the air,
When you see someone coming near?
Men seem to annoy and leave you in fear,
That you take to heels in top gear.
You live in the holes of boles
But rarely rest in those hollows
When the weather is warm and bright,
You forage food with all your might.
To beat the wintry days, you have many tactics
And it is a pleasure to watch your antics
You strive to fill your granary with nuts and grain
To this end, you are ready to take any strain
For you, living is the sole occupation
From labour, you never take any vacation
Seeing the manner you move and run
It seems you have so much energy to burn
How I love you little chirpy squirrel
Come to me, I shall feed you with nut’s kernel
Oh chattering friend, you remove from my dull day
All that can leave me in possible dismay