Best Milked Poems
My soul seems to be hidden today.
Where can it conceal itself?
I thought it was always with me,
Roaming the endless paths
That clatter the corridors of my mind,
coursing through my arteries and veins,
invading all essential organs
that keeps me alive all day.
Maybe it flew away
Like some mad eagle that lost its way!
I will not search for it.
It will return when it feels
There is a need for it.
My feet follow tracks unknown
Oblivious of time and space.
I meet old friends and strangers,
I pass on,
I do not recognise their mien.
I thread through paths lined
With rampant dark green ferns,
I slush through shallow muddy pools,
I rest below the copious hedgerows.
Down in the valley cows are milked,
Geese cackle and cocks crow,
Cats copulate in peace.
Fragrance of new-cut hay
Makes my nostrils flare.
Smoke billows from the chimney
Of an old cottage near the farm.
Should I invite myself,
Betake a country hearty meal?
I am welcome
Urged to taste the home-brewed beer
Or the new fermented cheese.
I feel a kind of peace.
Perhaps my soul is back
Or perhaps it's the beer or the cheese.
Who can say?
Scarlet and golden etched,
autumn leaves reflect summer's apprehended glory
incised in deep veined images.
Released, they sigh earthward like final breaths.
Sharp pungence ripens , musty tang,
a piquant vaporous mustard milked
from forest loam's black breasts
beneath life's heavy kneading tread.
Sudden, determined winds attack
raping writhed skeletal remains;
stripped spring's green clad darlings.
Feigning innocence,
the gray storm fiend curtains guilt
beneath pure, snow white overlay.
Copyright, August 2, 2014
Faye Lanham Gibson
(ALLITERATION)
Cows milked: mitigated mooing in the meadows then
Weaving on the warp, some workaholic women
Harvest of hapless halibuts on hooks
Bookish book-worms buried in books
A palomino and a pony patter on the paving
Hucksters and hawkers hawking every housing.
Ravers out on the razzle raising a raucous razz-ma-tazz
Beavers busy building beaver-dams but about it quite blasé.
Doves cooing in divine chorus
Frogs frisking out of focus
Horoscopes are hocus pocus.
Tidal waves of tsunami treacherously tread
Sea-anemones scattered upon the sea-bed.
Geraniums genuflecting in jungle-like gardens
Hunters wary of wandering wild-life wardens.
All this when I ventured about videotaping
Nature's much nicer even with no landscaping
These are direly different scenes from different parts of the globe
Perhaps like a space probe's kaleidoscopic poetic probe
( this poem has every letter of the alphabet except x)
I was a city born and city bred young fellow,
whose shoes had mostly only touched concrete and tar.
Oh yes I had seen grass, but out on a footy ground
and my entertainment was drinking at a nightclub bar.
As a city bred young bloke I had never seen the stars
for blanket smog and neon lights had blocked them out.
I never knew what clean air was, nor really cared at all,
and rain was just a nuisance that I could do without.
I had no idea where food comes from - why should I?
I just hand across ten dollars, and bingo! In my hand,
is warm and crispy chicken with leaves I throw away,
and chocolate milk comes in a carton with a brand.
But I’m informed one morning, this is not the case.
Milk, like cheese and butter, and yoghurt too somehow,
comes to the city from the country, for us city folk.
And I didn’t quite believe - from the inside of a cow.
A cow! I’ve never seen a cow. What’s a cow look like?
That’s right! I admit I’d not seen a cow in all me life.
I barely knew the difference, between a cow and a pig,
until in a nightclub - that’s where I met me future wife.
Jean is a lovely girl; so pretty, and near rural to the core.
She knows every breed of cow that is written in the book.
Jean has milked them, immunised, dehorned them in a crush,
so she’s quite strong in the arm and can land a great left hook.
I’m talking of me own experience; me jaw is still quite sore.
The lesson that I learnt is to choose words more carefully.
I’m not sure if the listeners sed at what I had said,
or were pleased to see an enraged woman acting like a bully.
Since we had married in the city, and lived in a city flat,
me darling Jean for many months suggested time and time again,
we should go back to her hometown where Jean promised me,
that I will finally see a cow and Jean won’t have to explain.
Now I’ve seen Friesians, Jerseys, Guernsey’s, Ayrshire’s;
I’ve eyed Poddy Calves, yearling Heifers, Bulls and Steers.
I’ve become an expert on cows, and just what is required.
I know everything that’s needed about cows so it appears.
But when lecturing colleagues with Jean close by me side,
it became the catalytic weapon to cause a murderous scene,
for I proudly uttered loudly without consequential fears,
that I had never seen a cow until - I met my wife Jean.
Fervently rosy, with an ancient glow,
But never any starlight from our sun;
It's glad rays in pure radiance flow,
Like molten gold, or as sugar spun!
Be it sunset red, or our vital light,
This golden traveler in black space;
Wherever it goes, it pierces night-
In the madly vivid, celestial race!
It's rays on glass makes fun diamonds,
But, deep shadows lie whence it blinks;
And night itself it's always shunned,
So, from such disdain, night shrinks!
It's presence keeps seasons in tune,
And gives amity and color to the wild;
And spreads the joys of harvest boon,
Whereon the fields of summer, it smiled.
Who gave birth to all our endless days,
When we milked the Milky Way Galaxy;
And left a trail of lost, wild bouquets,
While dreaming many dreams yet to be!
Vinny Rogers was a dairy man who milked three hundred cows.
Share farming with his son Bernie who put in the milking hours.
Now Bernie was adventurous; he liked his teenage fun.
He owned a car; paid off a boat - he also brought himself a gun.
Bernie you be careful
when you’re loading up that gun.
You've got to know your distance
and what damage can be done.
This gun was something special; more power than a three-o-three.
The bullets were more piercing said the spiel that he showed me.
The bore was mighty larger than his old twenty-two -
Bernie scanned the paddocks to see what this gun could do.
Bernie you be careful
when you’re loading up that gun.
You've got to know your distance
and what damage can be done.
Well it wasn't very long before, his first kill he's going to boast,
when he took aim at a crow that sat upon a corner post -
the bullet fired; the gun recoiled, and the crow is spun around.
Bernie heard the bellow from beyond - and saw their Friesian bull go down.
Bernie you be careful
when you’re loading up that gun.
You've got to know your distance
and what damage can be done.
I am chasing a galloping gingerbread, and the little old man and the
Little old woman and a rake and a fork and a spoon are helping me
When another villager begins yelling at the top of his musical scale,
“Christmas is here! Christmas is here!”
My eyes pop open. I am disoriented, not knowing where I am at first.
The galloping gingerbread cookie has turned into a galloping real-live-boy!
I must have fallen asleep on the couch, after sitting down for just a minute.
Three children in the form of sixteen battalion of horses
Hit those stairs like percussion instruments.
They have discovered that Santa left half of a frosted cookie.
Two are screaming while the oldest one devours it.
My husband plods in from the kitchen and smarter than Nero,
Forks over a chocolate-milked, double sugared, coffee. My hero!
I see you got finished, He says to me, the wrapping-present-queen
I nod. I was going to just sit down a second, before I came to bed.
He smiles, knowing how fast sometimes the energizer bunny
falls down in total exhaustion mode, in the form of his honey.
Max throws himself into my arms, warm pajamas and all.
A galloping gingerbread cookie, in the form of a live doll!
Written 11-30-2018 Contest: Christmas Cheer Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
The flowers don't know there's a virus,
they sit there and smile at the sun.
They brighten your day in a positive way.
They'll be here when the whole thing is done.
The birds don't know there's a virus,
they sing for all they are worth.
They have no idea of the panic and fear
that's creeping all over the earth.
The rain doesn't know there's a virus,
it falls on us every day.
It pays no regard to a life that is hard
and a worry in every way..
The hedgehogs don't know there's a virus,
and wonder why traffic is light.
It eases their load when they're crossing the road
and now they feel safer at night.
The cows don't know there's a virus,
Still need to be milked every day.
It seems such a shame and they're not to blame,
but the farmer just throws it away.
The dog doesn't know there's a virus,
he still wants to go for his walk.
We stand 20 feet from the people we meet.
We wave where once we would talk.
It's the people who know there's a virus,
they should do, they started it off.
It plagues them all day and they're starting to pay,
whilst hoping they don't start to cough.
So please don't forget there's a virus,
it certainly won't forget you.
So please take care, and please be aware
of the damage the damned thing can do.
Westernmost in its regional placement and traditional identity,
rare but indigenous is its Arabian flavour,
and a significant bridge of peace
between its brothers and their common enemy.
Displays an open tradition, appreciative of diabolism
as witches are integral part of its cultural settlements.
Typical of its nucleus is a combination of minarets structured worship centers,
Bazaars, sections called medinas and lasbali fortresses.
Its riches in wood stored up through the Atlas mountains
has milked its way from the dashboards of the Rolls Royce brand
and its possession of the “mother of all flowers”
has given the French creative experts a reason to fancy the world.
Public bath are greatly preferred to private ones
to flatter socialization in shrines of ritual purification.
Its rare ideology in liver displacing the heart in love’s symbolism
gives a perceived cosmic effect of its cute uniqueness.
The “assembly of the dead” and the Tomb of John the Baptist
are hugely important in its global historic relevance.
Just the way Aid al-kebir is held highly
so also is handling of food with the right hand
and as well in the acceptance of offered meat.
The glory of such a symbolic geography never stay silent
because the constant whispers of its honour,
despite not a continental union member
is evidenced by its official friendship to the world power
which is the first ever, among hundreds of many more.
A FULANI GIRL’S COMPLAINT
I carried water. I did all the house cores. I drove and bred the cattle one and alone, singing songs, running and climbing mountains. I milked, sold milk and bought you silk. I ground the corn and cooked your meals. I woke up on the peak of the seasons and carried duties; I did all these to be given to a wild hard-looking stranger like a cowry!
I spent my whole youth among trees and beasts in eloquent silence away from siblings, aloof! I learned and loved God through things that spoke to me, indented, with neither paper nor pen. I wore a strange hat and a stiff piece of cloth that fell on my knees revealing my bony legs; I had strings knotted around my waists and wrists and neck to be betrothed to a wild hard-looking stranger who swept me as if I were a cow for sale, reaped my inward garment and damned my virtue! His words are swords; his horn is a worm that eats in me, wholly!
Oh, Aunt! You fastened my tongue and sold me like Dauda’s slave who would quit me by day leaving me starved, empty bottles and pockets in Gbaya’s tins. Aunt, don’t care the whips, the solitude, the empty stomach, the hands that hurt like electrical cords, but, my aunt, his words are worse than swords and I miss my olden days, the twilight, the humanly beasts I forsook for the beastly human, mother’s looks that hook the heart, oh, I miss my old self!
Galim (Tignère), April 22, 2012
Jaafar Sadig El Waad
“Reverse Cyrano”
Reverse Cyrano
new wave poetry
straddles the ruins
milked
with two sugars
dark Tea dreams
red leaves laquer
the vain roadmaps
that stain the ingrained
with pommegranate poetry
the bejewelled heart
sweet and tart
and thick
skinned
sliced and skewered
each granate
a sparkling
hidden gem
within the ruby
words written
riding astride those worlds
like wolves
in those comforting
dicomforting whispering woods
for Cyrano reversed
so easily contracted
a hidden god and a poet
that lost lovers
may find submerged
in disoriented time adrift,
eyes open-wide undestracted,
the ravenous misunderstood unmissed.
Candide Diderot ‘25
There once was a man,
Who carved him a boat.
It was out of the cheese,
That he milked from his goat.
The first one he failed,
So he made him a note.
Never use Swiss,
Because it won’t float!
She was a devoted ole gal always at her best
so many days I cried hanging off her chest
down to the lake in the hot summertime
we would cool her off and swing on a vine
Every morning at five am here came Belle, now my friend
and again at six pm there Belle was ready to work again
years passed and Belle became a part of our family
we worked, we played, and we milked twice a day
Half my life she was one of my dear friends
I greeted her in summer with warm sun burnt skin
and in winter I spent my time warming them
when Belle died I can't say things were ever the same again
Belle had become more than a cow in a pen, who gave us milk
she became a babysitter, a circus act, part of the swim team, for the neighborhood
but most of all Belle had become a lonely teen's dear friend
We bought a cow at the state fair
and loaded her on the truck
to take her home, but halfway there
we had a stroke of good luck.
We hit a rock, and from the crash
she bounced away down the hill,
she mooed and made an awful splash
in the stream beside the mill.
The water was still awful cold,
the cow already freezing…
resisting as we roped and pulled
her breathing turned to sneezing.
My father said this won’t end well,
he couldn’t have been more wrong.
He thought the cow, we ought to sell
but changed his mind before long.
We took her home, our shook up cow,
unloaded her in the barn.
We thought we’d let her sleep for now
then see to her in the morn’.
The next day, just around sunrise,
the cow already awake.
I milked, and to my great surprise,
I got a frozen milkshake!
05/02/15
Stand on the veranda, look out in the fields
Can anyone know how great nature feels?
The pumpkins are growing on the vines
The grapes are harvested for great wines.
There’s golden hay, bailed for winter feed
Nourishing flocks with all that they’ll need.
Cows will be milked, eggs gathered each day
Sore backs or a cold will not get in the way.
Even after the snows cover the ground
Those daily chores will always abound.
Morning thru night, the work will come
It is their mission to feed everyone.
From the dawn of time they’ve been there
Nourish the masses with food everywhere.
Without them the world would not be fed
Sometimes their future is filled with dread.
Violent storms and drought will test them all
Yet with perseverance they refuse to fall.
Farmers were called by their love of the land
Our thanks to them all, as proudly they stand.