Best Homesteads Poems
Great are his exploits
honour and rank
he's celebrated
he's immortalized
He's fondly recalled
Back to memory
The great legends of Old..
Great Chief Waiyaki wa Hinga..
Aged nine he killed a lion
with his bare hands...
When the imperialist came.. Waiyaki..
Raised a huge Army armed with bows and arrows
Testing the might of the staff which spat fire
Fore told by the great seer Mugo Wa Kibiru..
..see people dressed like butterflies
they come from the sea of the hawk
and move on an iron caterpillar to the
lake of the eagle.. they carry a walking staff
which spits fire killing instantly... your weapons
will be useless when faced with this magical staff..
The great seer advised the people to learn
The pale skinned colonizers magic..
At right time armed with the right knowledge
The land of the slopes of Kerenyaga..
Will be liberated by its sons
The mountain of splendor and mysteries
Where people since ages ago have offered prayers
To the Supreme Deity Ngai Murungu..
Who is all loving and of good virtual
The supreme deity's Prophet Mugo wa Kibiru...
Is office of the chief seer..
Water Tabernacle the resting place of - Managi
The greatest Holy relic and the Box that is the relic
I recap they say Great Chief Waiyaki
Was betrayed by the pale colored..
foe he had called blood brother..
Angry Waiyaki took out his favorite club..
Mathiokore.. it was nicknamed..
Within minutes brains of the Great captain
were scattered on our rich soils
The invaders captured Waiyaki..
Our great Chief and opened his skull
Waiyaki died not.. they buried him alive
Head facing downwards.. Great Chief..
You should have heeded the Great seers
prophecy..
...don't allow the butterflies to enter your homesteads...
Buried alive..
Immortal Warrior king fate
The annual pilgrimage around
Kereenyaga - the abode of Ngai
Goes on each year.. pilgrims
Make seven stops as they
Circumbulate the Holy Mountain..
Of stories and more stories from the land
Where gods.. immortals.. and mortals
Rub shoulders looking each other..
Eye to eye... tales of KENYA
code 254
LEWIS NYAGA
Categories:
homesteads, africa, betrayal, community, conflict,
Form:
Narrative
They are along the edge of the woods,
in the meadow along the mighty river,
in a little crack in the drive way,
in orderly spaces in well groomed gardens.
They are in old, forgotten cemetaries,
in hedgerows along schools and shopping centers,
in ballfields, along ponds and ditches,
they popp up on cliffs, on top of windy hills,
in an old and abandoned flowerbox,
or almost empty clay pots.
They grace parking lots, the side of the highway,
they wind up mighty trees, fences and gates,
they thrive between the corn, wheat and barley,
they climb old barns, forgotten homesteads,
they spread out when left unattended,
to mark the spot a family once,
so many years ago, took pride in owning.
They are a prophet of seasons to come,
they are a splash of cheer and color,
they are visited by bees, bugs and butterflies,
they soothe us with their eternal scents,
and they always bring a smile to my face.
Categories:
homesteads, happiness, nature, sea, seasonsold,
Form:
Free verse
Everybody bears a price tag
Claim tycoons with bottomless purses
With a plethora of dollars to flash and flag
About to entice simpletons who deem their lives struck by curses
Inserted in their DNA
Generations ago
Which render them incapable to shove away
Bets of cash their stricken spines can’t forgo
While stomachs groan and lips
Demand smartphones, mascaras and lipsticks
Deployed to slay chaps with wanton whips
That cut and slice with savage kicks
On pates gone wan with insomnia
As limousine driven juggernauts
Splurge huge wads of notes to catalyze mass hysteria
Among street corner astronauts
Whose flight to Cupid exoplanet
Fell on its face
As moral worth net
They chose to suppress
In the face of perennial penury
That nibbles homesteads bereft of meals
In January
When cash overloaded sovereigns strike asymmetric deals
In which they beat down the cashless
Unless the poor rebuff cash offers
Preferring the famine and thirst the voiceless
Endure twenty four seven cos their coffers
Cash they’ve never seen
Cos fate shifted the balance of resources in favour of the few
Who more often than not turn out mean
To taunt the poor who shift on a church pew
As a tycoon blurts, ‘There’s a price tag on you
The sooner you acknowledge the reality
The better your world will enliven anew
As on you my bucks bestow and restore dignity in humility.’
Categories:
homesteads, poems,
Form:
Free verse
As
it
was
that
in
my
pain
I
felt
the
agony.
Building
up
inside
me
like
a
Jericho
wall
that
refused
to
fall
was
my
misery.
I
forgot
the
names
of
those
who
shot
the
same
people
in
the
struggle
with
me.
It
was
never
discussed
how
we
can
get
focused
through
the
strain
of
the
chain.
The
Abels
of
the
Dutch
people
were
the
evil
spirits
that
murdered
a
Cain.
In
unsettled
homesteads
in
the
wilderness
of
pity
hanging
filthy
attire
on
trees.
Our
women
danced
for
their
men
and
their
women
cooled
our
faces
like
a
morning
breeze.
Through
your
many
outcast
brothers,you
created
a
vessel
that
spread
your
disease.
They
structured
gay
constitution
and
made
prostitution
businesses
out
our
sisters.
Established
churches
to
tutor
slaves
on
the
slave
trade
and
rapist
ministers.
For
long
have
we
endured
the
pain
not
insured
under
the
reign
of
terror.
Blood
has
been
spilled
and
my
fathers
raped
and
killed
trying
to
settle
the
error.
We
are
one
but
not
long
have
I
begun
seeing
black
in
this
bloody
mirror.
Color
is
just
a
craving
of
the
whitewashed
masses.
When
was
it
that
you
forced
Dutch
vocabulary
upon
the
dark
skinned
classes?
And
when
we
rallied
in
the
streets
against
it
you
chose
to
shoot
us.
Now
your
christian
institutions
are
trying
to
brain-
constitute
us.
If
war
was
never
the
motive
we
would've
saved
more
lives.
Now
you've
created
democracy
and
raped
our
wives.
Categories:
homesteads, africa
Form:
Concrete
Light tropic breezes
carry colorful balloons
across taro fields
While ancient homesteads
dotting the quiet landscape
stand frozen in time
Written on 5/24/2015
Haiku
Categories:
homesteads, change, farm, time,
Form:
Haiku
Fred Seegmiller
1871 - 1907
You never met a man who loved my town.
As I much as I did.
Coming here in ’90 by the train.
It nearly killed me, but I stayed on my knees.
I prayed and prayed I would not go mad.
For 15 years I played the organ.
In the magnificent church on Bailey Street.
I played the passions of Bach and the soothings of Handal.
And I served refreshments in the churchyard.
One night in Mid March
After services had concluded,
Rebecca walked into my life.
She coyly received my flirtatious wink
And a family of five was the magical result.
For twelve years I moved lumber by horse and reigns,
And drove the wagonload to the flowering homesteads.
I worked hard, prayed to God
And never forgot to kiss my wife goodbye.
I lived on the end of Olive Street.
Hidden by tall Elms,
Inside my house with the white shutters,
I brought two of my brood into this world
And I watched one leave it in the winter of ’99.
It was in that same room,
The one in the back by the myrtle tree,
That I too tasted death.
I had the cancer
And it was eating me like a cannibal unconverted.
And now I am dead and buried in Clark Cemetery.
And my living soul longs to spend just one more minute.
Just one more minute
As a dying man.
My soul is not dead.
My soul is not sad.
Let me sleep now.
Categories:
homesteads, death, me, cancer,
Form:
Epitaph
Year five of the Great Depression.
April 14, 1935 another Sunday of church services praying for
The rain that wasn’t coming.
And the sky turned mean and angry, as daylight was obliterated into The blackness of night. The wind scoured the land, sweeping
Everything in front of it like a plague of ancient locusts.
A great migration of dust lifted up, blowing away a swath
Of the American dream, leaving only memories before 1935.
A relentless burning wind emptied out what little hope the
Migrating towns had left.
Every inch of top soil was devoured, while dead cattle were strung out Against the barbed wire fence line; marked boundaries didn’t count for much anymore.
A blizzard of death coated whatever was in its way, across the
Empty fields of the Great Plains, the haciendas of New Mexico, the Empty towns of Oklahoma and everywhere it touched.
Black Sunday’s revenge was absolute, falling black snow, six feet deep.
Dust coating the lungs, blinding the eyes, swallowing the homesteads.
An inky black wall spawned from hell spread its wings, soaring Hundreds of feet high. When it ended, nothing would be the
Same in these places.
The barren Dakotas.
The endless plains of Kansas.
The mountain peaks of Colorado.
The great dust bowl of Oklahoma.
The arid lands of New Mexico.
The vast Texas cattle ranches.
America, Sunday April 14, 1935
Hard times.
Categories:
homesteads, america, history, weather,
Form:
Narrative
Hypocrites’ oath
Dirt-cheep government clinics treat death
And disease just like they are dirt and refuse
Which in a way is just about fine.
Today’s multi specialities, housing as they are ,
A subtle tree branching off into labs,
A stethoscope hanging from every crotch of its,
Pre-set to prescribe a slew of tests whether it’s
Common cold or cancer,
Ninety-year-old or tiny tot,
Sugar coating their contempt for the medically illiterate
By glorifying life and ridiculing death and selling it to us
For a vulgar price, often a fortune for a sniffles.
How would they not? When folks are willing
To sell off homesteads to treat a harmless swelling.
Here, in one such, folks sit cursing their ‘fate’ology
Before a board which says Neurology
Like the rare cucumber slice floating about
In its chic eatery’s sambhar* hot. Thinking of how, once out,
They could wear the physician’s famous name around
Like a red and yellow flower garland
Bought at the wayside stall at a price, a hundred
Times over what the farmer who grew them got .
The good old physician seems gone, genial , suave,
Sitting in his modest office, respecting your illness,
Your money and the Hippocrates’ oath more than you
Which the new crowd misspell as Hypocrites’ oath too
Not because they did not pass the spelling bee
But acquired the all important degree
And an incurable greed for money.
11th Sept 14
Form: free verse
Categories:
homesteads, health,
Form:
Free verse
nature, storm, boat, clothes, house, water
AWASH AND AWAY! © KIMO
Listen, Katrina will come inland
Katrina has come to play
Playgrounds underwater
Sleepy times put asunder
Bedclothes hung out in tree tops, upended
Held fast in forked boughs
Homesteads beached, broken
Swirl and swell in amongst debris
They become crippled and tainted
A brew of pestilent plagues builds unwanted
It lies in wait to contaminate!
Katrina's force sings out old-time nursery rhymes
To be carried out on the wings of fate
Questing and calling for ownership
On today’s horrific wake!
“ROCK A BYE BABY, IN A TREE TOP, When the wind blows……..”
“BYE BABY BUNTING, DADDY'S GONE AHUNT'N---
To catch a little…….”
“Little Bo-Peep has Lost Her Sheep---
Where or where can she find it”?
“Where, Oh Where has my little dog
gone---”?
“I'LL Huff and Puff and Blow You’re House Down
Not By, ‘The Hair of My Chin-Chin-Chin”!
“Ring around the Rosie,
A Pocket Full Of Posies---
Hush-ah, we all FALL DOWN!”
“Rain, Rain Go Away,
Come Back Another Day!”
"K", My Name Is "K A T R I N A"
And I went INLAND!
"K", My Name Is Also "Killjoy"
I Am Made Of Wind and Water and Sand!
Uh, where's that "PEA GREEN BOAT”?
"K", is for Kettle
AND I BLEW ALL TO KINGDOMCOME!
“TEA FOR TWO….
AND YOU FOR ME!”
"K", is for Kaput
And it was about my Karma!
"HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall,
HUMPTY DUMPTY" had a great fall---
AND ALL THE KINGS HORSES, AND.....?”
"K", is also for Kindred Waters
And I am vast
You were the KINGPIN
‘KEYSTONES’ NOW LIE IN MY WAKE!
“KNICKY, KNICKY 9 DOORS-“
“COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE?”
“LAST ONE OUT IS A DIRTY ROTTEN EGG?”
I double dare you to tread again
“Rover, Rover you can’t come over!”
“STEP ON A CRACK AND YOU BREAK YOUR ‘MUDDERS’ BACK!”
“Itsy Bitsy Spider
Went Up the Water Spout-
Down Came the Rain,
And Washed The Spider Out....
Out Came the Sun and Dried Up All the ‘Pain’
“ITSY BITSY SPIDER
WENT UP THE SPOUT AGAIN!”
....didee© Verse
Categories:
homesteads, abuse, boat, clothes, house,
Form:
Free verse
Two-ply in roses of yellow and pink
rolls and sings to the touch
of fingers on its faintly-scented folds,
giving miles of pleasure to soft seats
on hard covers all in the name of
modern convenience which is a change
from old catalog sheets housed in
quarter-moon outhouses
behind homesteads.
Two-ply greets us in grocery stores,
all the pretty ones sit on the front row,
purring at our squeeze test,
begging to be brought home,
heaven forbid if you buy the plain,
all-white, skinny two-ply which sits on the
bottom shelf looking forlorn because of
Its unscented homeliness.
Two-ply dies a million deaths each day,
lost in the vortex of flushed toilets,
killing its suppleness and sweet fragrance,
headed to the deep, dark sewers waiting
to be processed in the jaws of the
sewage treatment plants which do not
discriminate against the bland,
anorexic and hard-to-the-touch.
Categories:
homesteads, humor, humorous,
Form:
Prose
Cutting stones for building blocks doesn't
bring the whole food at the table. Playing
betting games force them to sell their
clothes and shoes. Saving money becomes
harder than collecting drops of rain during
drought.
Their children toil in the farms and streets,
because they have no school fees;
their daughters end up as pleasure toys
for the rich, for they don't have enough money
to buy sanitary pads and maintaining beauty;
their sons become easy prey for politicians
who pay a few hundreds for causing chaos
to their opponents.....
Gods' eyes shy away from their blessings,
forcing them to turn from lawful men
to gang-bangs, hiding around streets
and lavish estates. Frustration sometimes
force them to press the trigger,
as they scoop out handbags, briefcases,
and pockets.
Their lives are sustained for a while in the midst
of inflation and higher house rents. Their children
go back to school, and food becomes more abundant
at the dining table. Debts are also paid.
Soon, the arms of the law stretch to their homesteads,
and put them in handcuffs. Their wives and children
watch in despair. The sole providers are sent in jail,
to serve decades or life sentences.
Hard life is all they know from outside or inside the prison bars.....
Categories:
homesteads, deep, imagery, life, society,
Form:
Narrative
Human life deserves a platform to unfold
Away from straitjackets of pious scrutiny
Whose eyes, ears and hands feel so cold
They reject freedom and project a mutiny
Born from the scorn society pours on freedom
Curtailing every progressive move towards expanding
Frontiers of free thought, thought outside the stricture kingdom
Where dissenters earn the label of antisocial branding
Perceived by untested notions whose dubious value
Lies in objecting to new ideas, new approaches
To matters where life suffers because critics with no clue
Claim innovations and expansions in thinking circulate cockroaches
In citadels that preserve culture and tradition
To limit the extent to which inhabitants expand the scope
Life ought to enjoy without any undue restriction
Imposed by custodians of traditions whose pope
Preaches limitations on abortion and exploration of modernization
In the wake of disruptive technologies
That spawn conundrums in which efforts of socialization
In traditional societies and African mythologies
Die a natural death
When social media facilitate new ways of communicating and connecting
Whose wealth and health
Diminish and extinguish mores, norms and customs, projecting
Arguments whose cogent basis tenuous at best
Can’t stand reliability and validity
Scrutiny and which traditionalists attest
Matter to defend the utility and solidity
Archaic notions offer to society’s progress
In which the worth and splendor of life
Matters more than efforts to suppress
Moves to eradicate and eliminate wife
Battery and slavery in the context of gender based violence
Rife in African townships and homesteads
Where traditionalists promote the importance
Domestic violence plays in subjugating stubborn heads.
Categories:
homesteads, poems,
Form:
Free verse
Freezing ,wet and hungry,
In need of food and rest,
The MacDonalds took them in,
And made them all a guest,
The weather here was always harsh,
A storm could last a week,
But the snow had started falling,
Things were really looking bleak,
They fed their guests with all they had,
And kept the fires burning,
They could stay as long as need be,
The weather wasn't turning,
They sat and told old stories,
And shared their heather ale,
Played their highland bagpipes,
As they sheltered from the gale,
On the twelth night as they slept in bed,
Thinking all was good and well,
The guests had started killing all,
A night of living hell,
A few escaped out to the hills,
They fled in the cold of the night,
But with the conditions a total whiteout,
Survival was a fight,
By daylight back at the village,
The MacDonalds all lay dead,
The ground around their homesteads,
A sticky patch of red,
The Massacre of Glencoe,
Dated Feb 13th 1692,
Where the Campbells showed their colours,
To the likes of me and you,
It's said today when you're in the Glen,
Or simply passing through,
You can hear the screams of MacDonalds,
Their spirits live with you,
And even to this very day,
There's a sign above the Inn,
'No Campbells welcome here,
Or anywhere within'....
Categories:
homesteads, history, night, night, weather,
Form:
Rhyme
An abandon old town, from where life once thrived,
now sets alone forsaken and desolate in the late evening sun.
Empty shadows dance across the ground gripping the old town
with an eerie reality of lost hope and futile dreams.
Old building sags in the moonlight.
Homesteads stretch out across the endless barren land.
Empty like the promise of a new life.
A cool breeze drifts aimlessly through open doors,
and broken windows, scattering into time pieces of the past.
.
Categories:
homesteads, introspection, life, lossold, old,
Form:
Narrative
Even though others couldn’t wake up in the morning
With cries and wailing
Filling up their homesteads
I thank you God
That I still walk on this earth
Having given me another chance
Even though others would have nothing
To eat for days and even to drink
I have a slice of bread and a drop of water to drink
I thank you God
Even though some have cars and private jets
To take them everywhere
I thank you God
That I could still use my legs
Taking to take me anywhere
Knowing that there are those who have legs
But cannot even walk
Even though I cannot sing as the birds do
In their moments of joy
I thank you God that I have ears
To listen to their soothing melodies
Even though I have never been perfect in life
And err many times over
I thank you God
That you still shower
Your Grace and mercy on me
Even though I only pray
When in pain and worried
I thank you God
That you still answer my prayers
Categories:
homesteads, allah, blessing, courage, loneliness,
Form: