Best Mulching Poems
The old year is gone
You say
Dead as leaf fallen
Under a barren tree
Dead
And still mulching roots
Of new growing
Things
Dead and still
Nurturing continuities
A breast in the mouth
Of bitter hunger
No hand can remove
How is a thing gone
And yet remain
To corrupt everything
Every new dream is a fruit
Of old ambition
Every ambition
Has a stalk of pain
Nothing dies
Until memory is lost
And memory
Is not the frost
In the sun.
My order is disheveled
Contemplating time
The root
Of all mortality
While I
Like an old year past
Away
And be dead
When no one remembers
For the ash
Without the ember
Is dust in the wind
The forest
Fragile as love again.
The old year is gone
Dead you say
The river flows
And never comes back
In tears or in rain.
SPRING GARDEN PREPARATION (20150213)
After the winter season
But before the rains begin
Catalogues of heirloom seeds
Delivered just in time
Earmarked and prioritized
Farmer’s Almanac consulted
Given planting periods
Horoscopes included (but useless!)
Individual seed varieties ordered
Junk mail shredded and added to compost
K (potassium) added as potash
Lumber purchased for trellises
Mulching around transplanted seedlings
Non-Genetically Modified Organisms only
Organic fertilizers only, too
Planting by phases of the moon
Quick-fix pesticides are anathema
(Round-Up kills everything--US, not just weeds)
Seed boxes keeping seedlings warm
Testing the soil for minerals and organics
Unleashing ladybugs and pollinators
Vertical gardening to conserve space
Watering just enough, but not too much
Xenocide, killing unwanted weed species
Youngsters helping (or hindering)
Zoning plants to vary root depths
Fungi, fungus, funguses thousand fold,
eukaryotic life kingdom of yeast and mold.
Ancient legends and myths from many times,
beginnings and ends through mulching slimes.
Egyptians sensed the connection in fungi to gods,
only Pharaohs allowed to have them as foods.
Consuming the fungi to become immortal static,
Mushroom stones in Mesoamerica enigmatic.
The Rig Veda describes the juice of Soma,
considered as precious liquid of stardust and earth aroma.
Indispensable in all worships and ritual,
similar to Greek deities of cognate ambrosia.
Consumed in Shamanic sessions to contact spirits of the dead,
fortifying long hunting trips an dreams thread.
Penicillin antibiotics against bacterial infection,
surviving the war with needed invention.
Psilocybin and psilocin magic shrooms,
DMT, acid blotters magic truffles booms.
Alice in wonderland and the philosopher’s stone,
introspective hallucination and psychosis throne.
Natures secret language by mildews organisms,
earths everlasting fungi dew compost prism.
pastoral meadow
newly shorn sheep grass mulching
woolly mammoth bones
The shade of a swizzle stick
Clank to a glass
Stirring of wet stuff
Cooling of gas
Pleasure from drinking
Washing it 'round
Gushing then gobbling
Drooling it down
Clunk; there's an ice cube
Frosted in vision
Sunken till risen
Expanding with fission
Spinning the cherry
In circles that narrow
Mulching the flavours
Till bones fill with marrow
Blending the colours
In one seemly manner
Tasting the sword
Through lips you have gored
Stabbing the olive
With one splintered pick
Tasting the olive
In one bite that's quick
Laying the napkin
Aside of the glass
The glass starts to dribble
The waitress walks past
brown garden
mulching leaves replenish
child laughs and jumps
This is my garden.
I recently discovered
the quiet allure
of the forgotten art of gardening.
More than shoving seeds into soil,
More than impatiently waiting for seedlings and then greedily harvesting the fruit of one’s labour.
More than the many thankless hours
of back-breaking weeding, mulching, watering, cursing, despairing.
And when it is time for the plant to finish its cycle of giving,
the gardener plans again, plants again, hopes again.
In the midst of this mindless weeding,
this ridding of unwanted plants,
I am often surprised by a sudden creeping silence that descends,
a rustling of leaves both immediate and near, perhaps the cooing of doves hidden.
And then I know-
I am in The Zone, lost to the world.
I am reckless in the garden, deliberately so.
Relishing a recklessness which otherwise in any other place I am not permitted.
I allow weeds to sprout
and birds to disperse seeds of indeterminate origins everywhere in this tiny and crowded yard.
My garden’s alarmingly haphazard appearance
Is strangely comforting and somehow familiar.
I check-in daily
on the betel leaves, periwinkles and black-eyed peas-
humble and oft-overlooked flora.
I am learning from their hardiness and dependability,
their valued ordinariness.
Re-potted, sytrofoam-boxed, stringy, stunted, yellowing and nondescript
None look impressive.
Yet,
I am satisfied, I am quietly content
With these hurriedly snatched moments
on a Sunday morning, on a harried weekday evening
here among these humble pots.
Here in this garden of joy,
faith is restored
sanity preserved
through the power of a seed.
26 Dec 2013.
a crisp chill fills the early morning air
dew drops periodically appear on the
yellowing blades of grass
as a light frost coats
shimmering panes of glass
viridescent leaves
have long become burnt umber under the
emerging light
bronze branches
are losing their grip on decaying foliage
scattered
beneath is a graveyard of the last remaining
memories of summer
crunching
under the feet of cawing crows
looking for a feast among the
mulching wreckage
as a swift wind sweeps in from the east petioles separate
from slender twigs
dispersing the final layers of a once cherished umbrella in
the midday heat
what thrived in the prime of life now lays among fading
tomorrows
and bygone warmth
night begins to coat the faraway skies
and with it brings the first signs of a bitter winter
the last remaining signs of vibrancy fly away with the
canadian geese
now all i'm left with is the hollow emptiness of a forlorn
season
lighting the wick of an ivory candle just to have a flicker of solace in this deadening
dark
Seemingly, sudden,
Restful sleep all but over.
Wild tricolored Irises, vivid white, sun centered, Shasta Daisies,
And Cosmos of azures, fuchsias and buttery cups;
Babies breathing, eager to begin once again,
In order to forsake the bronze, soft textured crustiness
Of the newly milled mulching caps, as they race for
The viewer and the gazer's glorious prize.
Even with a long and empty storehouse,
The beautiful bachelors and bachelorettes
All remember how to drink
From natures vase,
And where to turn their faces
For one fleeting and lasting
Ray of purpose.
5/8/2014
By Izunna Okafor
Oh ye the sun
Why have you been stubborn like son
Consistent in gazing at ground
Endlessly waxing around the town
The ground is as though as husk
But you never consider the gross of dust.
Why have you always unleashed your anger
Treating your people as though we are stranger
Have you forgotten your mandate to the man on earth
To the extent of being a straw to uproar his thirst
Oh the sun when will you dismount from us
Thy wicked eyes of drought and blocks
Thy hotness of thy eye is severe to man
And the warmness of thy time has defied the land
You cool a hand with liquor
But beat a man to stupor
Your good works are never rejected
But your hook ones are ever dejected
You dread not the men
And you fear not the rain
Punching out the rays to the cloud
And mulching out the blaze to the crowd
A pregnant woman you spare not
Not even a new baby you spare wrath.
You make a giant a lazy man
And rename a Goliath a baby man
Oh the sun when shall ye retreat
And remove thy bricks along the street
The calves of men are now like blades
Crushing the earth as ruin abrades.
Our body is now at stake
Just as our colour is now mistake
Your dryness is never to quench the quake
But to bring the earth to thirst and quake
Oh thy sun I beseech thee to leave the earth alone
Your mandate to man is to bring the earth to growth
And not to bring the earth a groan.
Thus we appeal thee the sun
Dismount thy host from men and go.
About The Poet:
Izunna Okafor is an award-wining creative Young Nigerian Novelist, Poet, Essayist, Journalist, Editor, Translator, Publicist, Igbo Language Activist and an Administrator who hails from Ebenator in Nnewi South L.G.A of Anambra State Nigeria. He writes in English and Igbo languages, and has published enormously in both, nationally and internationally. Izunna has received over 25 awards, and has over 800 articles published online.
Ammonia-ed clumps of damp, dunged straw
forked onto her cold barrow, then rolled outside.
Across the field where her ninety pounds
thrust up the dray atop a mulching mound!
Nineteen times before the sour dregs
are swallowed by the day.
Bowed tendons stripe her calloused palms with pain.
She racks each open with a metal comb
to rake her horse’s mane.
Stall cleaned; horse fed, mane combed to shine as gold-
Showered, she brings her smile to our bed.
Leaves, green with sap of lush Spring trees
Flutter as branch bound butterflies,
Whistling tunes in Summer breeze
Backing cicada mating songs.
Well-seasoned leaves blistered with rust
Fly as pennants on Autumn limbs.
Much retired from recycling CO2
They rocked and rolled on Winter ground,
Rout-steppers marching in review,
Mulching forward with much to do.
Kids Stuff
Children will believe anything
In talking animals
And moons made of cheese
Fairy castles
With shinning knights
And magic doors
Secret gardens
Dwarfs and Trolls
Evil kings and Evil Queens
Snow White dreams
Arabian Princesses
Warlocks and Witches
Yes children will believe in anything
Mermaids and cities beneath the sea
Great monsters
Unicorns and Dragons
Kids are so easily lied to
And led astray
The advertising of the latest craze
The fried slop burger meal
That taste so great
The necessity of cardboard box crunchy
Mass produced
Plastic child
Of Pokemon desirability
Yup kids will believe in anything
The mulching gargling abuse of an industry
Little consumer-ites
Hooked on the sweet and salty
The cartoon world
Of their resale-ability
Video games of make up
Fashion they need to be
In the general acceptance
Of peer pressure conformity
Children will believe anything
In plastic knives
And rubber weapons
In invincible soldiers
And righteous wars
The marketable idioms
Sell them violence
Convince them they have already grown
Play their games
On the fad gadget mobile phone
Little innocent targets
To blackmail parents with
Into parting with their hard earned cash
Give in
Stop the tantrums and the tears
Happy little children
See how we feed them
See what we teach them
About adults
Yup! Kids will believe anything
In star reaching swings
And daisy chains
In the realistic rattle of toy machine guns
In the great and grand promise of heaven
In a designer label
In the miniature worlds of Lilliputians
In what ever is fed to their imagination
With the chocolate goo flavored ketchup sauce
Of this crude ever pleasing entertain me culture
Yup! Children will believe anything
Amazing
What we teach them about adults
Into the woods she walks wearing a red
hooded plain woolen cape; moving cautiously
as she talks to herself to ease the dreaded
fear she wants to escape.
She hears the crunching of dry leaves mulching
under her feet. A maiden friend she'll meet
on the other end of the woods;
a shortcut to her neighborhood.
She wished she'd brought her fearless dog
in case she got caught by a dangerous wild;
he would scare whatever was there.
The ascending sun brought streaks of blue sky
as it peaks casting shadows across the ground.
She follows the path through the woods. A sharp
breeze springs up slicing through the autumn morn.
She freezes drawing a short breath of dread.
The quiet is broken and drowned. Branches
creak and leaves rattle, with the flapping of wings
as frighten birds quickly take flight.
She quickens her steps and made her way to the end.
Left behind, where the wild things are.
1/8/2019
Poetry Contest: Free Verse Style Only
Sponsored by: Emile Pinet
THE PLUCKED AND WATERED FLOWER
Wondering lonely as a floating firmament,
Seeing a petal held up by the branch
Like a host of golden daffodils,
In the green pastures of nature
whistling sounds of peace
Besides the still lakes of serenity,
I apply as the gardener in the vineyard
Mulching the gracious garden
As my weary toes grips mother earth.
To pluck the flower is to "like"
With the help of the heavenly wind
But love is to water the flower,
Daily, as such is the true life
Splintered with the taint of love.
Vick Manuel Poetry {VMP}
Copyright © 4th January, 2022.