Best Ploughed Poems
We are in our fall before the season comes
Misting eyes and dropping a dandy heart
A sullen silence around the bee hive hums
History has no center left, facts fall apart
I have nothing left for honey but my words
Listening cleanse the eyes to see forever
Soon the sky flocks with all departing birds
Old bonds are unbroken, new loves sever
But to come again in heat and passion and lie
Cradled against the unknown of life's tomorrows
So summer goes, and sweet flowers will die
To bloom again as carpet for graves of sorrows.
Soon gold will fall from trees in a gray misty shroud
And all that was green will be brown and dim
And wild grass will bow where the land was ploughed
And wind will tap on its trumpet life's requiem
Wandering the virtual
green fields of home,
I open the farmyard gate
fall into a haze of retrospect.
I see a “LMS Black Five” Locomotive
bellowing upon a utilized line,
ghostly sparks tantalizing
the embankment.
Below a paddock ploughed,
sown with scattered seed
to germinate this memory
of that time past.
I stroll the hoary lane
beneath a pale cold eve,
discover soft mist stirring
upon the low moor, in warps
of time, giving in to modernization.
Mile high bracken upon the Beacon
under a clementine moonlight,
in shadows drifting to and fro
like the tide upon the silken sea.
At the old cottage
in Sugar Hill,
I see a cut glass vase, sitting supreme
upon the polished surface
with rose, carnation and dahlias,
near by a collection of love
in all those wonderful bluebells
from Nesfield.
“In the old Jam Jar”
Entered 2022 Poetry Marathon mile 14 contest
Sponsor Mark Toney
13/9/2022
When Meaning Is Meaningless
The value of life is delicious debris
When meaning is meaningless
The victims search bread crumbs in the bounteous stale loaf
The light of nude night blinks blindness
What does meaning mean for life at the edge?
for ant’s feasting in farmished frocks
I find flames from the bottomless fire of life
If you seek meanings on this ploughed lanes
You sing museless songs of leprous crochets
When meaning is meaningless
Those who saw off meaning say:
‘See this sense with little sense and
keep this lunacy living in the silent hut’
The dire strait of sense- less bigots
Stifle the lobes of logic-quotient that can midwife meaning
What meaning is in our meaning?
Around the carnary class of misfiring mermaids
What meaning do we allot a life laden in scars
From fiery vaults and heart brakes from many lovers.
We shall find the missing syllables and symphonies
And sing songfuls in the sweet seraphdom
Moon In Auburn
As the stars were heaped upon a mantles Shangri-La
The miniature toy town beneath its cape
Quiet hung in yellow golden windows lit
So silent in the dales and woods blanket
The dog fox cry echoed from the moon
Crisp and cloudless chill less coldness
With the twin of the moon fluxed silver blue
In the tiny handmaidens mirror of reflection
Natures dark slept beneath the shadows of her hand
And she crept in dreams
Within the tip toe of cats
Rendered the night through amber eyes
Glistening on the turns of lovers kisses
For all the endless that she misses
Arched above an eternal sky
She is drawn to the moss of rocks
And clings in branches hung with lichen
To the feathered damp of leaves
Which catch her spark
Just a whisper footfalls breezes shifter
In the country lanes of ancient mazes
By stone wall and rabbits foot
Close upon the dandelions head
With all the disguised colours leaping on unseen acoustics
Were hidden amongst rivulet beds
Catching the silver blue
The dog fox cry echoed from the moon
And swung out the flax upon the stars
Fingers traced their destiny within those pinpoint suns
A pattern constellation traits of has; she was born
The atonement of steady reckoning he had
Cut in trough on the ploughed earth
Where all the seeds of tomorrow had been scattered
With all their promises of a seasons ripening
Old songs sung of proud man “John Barleycorn”
And the distillation of his bone and marrow
And while the stars piled high on their Shangri-La
Recounted the lost tales of lovers in forgotten times
All the memories fell in auburn locks
And swept upon the Luna light shores
The twin she fluxed in silver blue
And the dog fox cry echoed from the moon
In a chariot of fire in the sun
blew a pale horse and pale rider’s last breath,
and on your grave sings a haunting raven
in the shadows of the valley of death.
Between trembling leaf and pohutukawa
the undertaker’s men stood grave and bier,
and brave stoic life filled the living hour
forevermore a day, a week, a year.
These time echoes rise up from its bones,
and that lone raven's song on pit row
pipes through the rushes beyond the tombstones
where time cut short above stood still below.
Yet I fear death itself I shall not mourn
when its flame bearer blows its fiery horn.
But far more does sound a haunting in me
as if your faint voice my ear passing through -
and I trapped betwixt next world and earthly
sit this day communing with God and you.
Today I upon this ploughed earth sullen gaze
and hearken in the blooms the winds of death!
Its cold foul blow that bodes ill all my days
dares to breathe on me its cankered breath.
These time whispers rise up from its bones,
and that lone raven's song on pit row
pipes through the rushes beyond the tombstones
where time cut short above stood still below.
Yet I fear death itself I shall not mourn
when its flame bearer blows its fiery horn.
Written: July 1995
Within the subtle soundless silence
There exist echoes of a lingering loud
My pendulous heart decrees in defiance
Such emotions plundered and ploughed
Like a geocentric giant guillotine
My lamenting love sacrificially sliced
My soul slaved in the Enigma machine
Where dreams are deceptively diced
The loving light battles the darkest day
And sorrows surrender at portals gate
For love barely escapes the submissive sway
Marauding memories reminisce and recreate
Stained surreal abiding accumulative art
A priceless painting of my Pendulous Heart.
May.20.2017
Pendulum of Time and Place - Contest
Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
Young, gentle and in bondage
This innocent bird flew towards the promised land
Her frame petite yet powerful
Her eggs beautifully nested when transported from Calcutta
The sight of the new turf welcoming
A dream of hope and fair go brewing deep within
Day and night she laboured for payments equating to peanuts
The breadth of whips ploughed her like a bull in the harsh fields of Nadi
Her eggs now fertile
A pretentious malnourished glow adorning her face
No snug mattress at night
No baby shower
The scorching sun and the liberal rain
Her only companions to clad her in celebration
Cooked, then drenched, then burnt…
She finally delivers a dead bundle of tears
Her tragedy apparently not so sensational
Urging her overseer to order her back to the fields in four days
The memories of the dead child
Not at all dead in her head
Cold and depressed she refuses to present herself
Maternity leave a term alien on the ‘girmit’ fields
Gathering courage from ‘Durga’, she dares to speak of rights
Perhaps the very last time she spoke
The overseer, insulted and beats her near death
Lying in the fields with broken limbs and essence
Her veil the only bandage
To cover her wounds.
The slow progress of a wandering mind.
With quiet ambition, too swift to humble.
I should not fall, will not break,
I fear that I will never give up my quest.
It's strange now that I search,
Never knowing what for, or where to look.
I feel the years drawing in.
Impatient to be grown,
Careful to stay young.
Not too soon,
Take life slow.
So I do, and no pleasure do I take.
What pride do I derive from a shallow life?
A slow life, lacking depth and texture.
It used to be deep, it used to be hard.
But then, in those days there used to be sunlight.
Oh how I miss the sunlight.
Now as winter draws in, pale and icy,
Lacking substance, just as I do.
It makes sense that a slow life should be hard too.
The conflict in my natures, one to fly,
One to sink. For now the latter wins.
Dissatisfaction, a simple artifact of dreaming.
A girl once young and free,
Now resides within the chains of society.
For the time being I must seek focus,
But am constantly distracted by the ghosts I miss,
People that fell aside as life ploughed on.
All I know is that I miss you, my sunshine,
I never want you to fall out of my sight.
Never set, never fade and please, never burn out.
I meditate to clear my mind
I meditate real slow
I meditate to contemplate
On all the things I know
Would meditate let me mediate
Between my mind and soul
Can I meditate until I see
The day that I am old
Wrinkles on my face appear
Like trenches that are ploughed
Scorching sun has dried my skin
My life has passed somehow
A day once happened I was born
And dreams began to flow
I thought that time would never stop
An endless TV show
I meditate and contemplate
I feel my world within
I see my sorrow and my joy
And new dreams to begin
Scarecrow Addict
Gritted and dusty
Powered by flack jacket eyes
Bootsteps through grey puddles
Flotilla of cigarette butts
Trash kicked aside
In a desert of litter
Seeking the soulless of death
Chattering on split lips
The grimy irk of air
Festoons the rink and rack
The floating black
Sucks unbidden
Horses into battle ridden
Scream through his lungs
Broken weapons
Filled with empty bullets
Enemies in their colours run
Demon angel
Of the iridescent metal
In the bars of sculptured hell
For the hot choke of alcohol
Has squandered his nights
And burnt his will
The vengeance of mirrors
He cannot defy
He has become
The man with the gun
And rabid dog bark
Is the music
The fang gangster rap
Chews on his pride
Coughs back and spits
Too many drugs
To fill his hate
As he seethes through the alleys
The ricochet sound of poverty
Slaps hard at the cold
Whistle through the doorstep
The vicious snide crack
Scavenges his chest
Scarecrow buckshot
Trammels his lungs
And coughs up plastic
Iron girders against shattered walls
Where the whole world threw up
His sick
Chokes on the disgusting chuck up
Of need
So full of promises
But still lets in the freezing winds
To whined up urine stained
In the pallor
The colour
Of his sky
Bandit warrior and loser
This brave young man
Watched this driven and ploughed memory
Eat away
By iron vice drag
Devastate his pale haired wench
Leaving blood trailing on her breast
Pimped
She was
And hate in grey battered uniforms
Drove the callous on
And lifted him from the reeking cans
Of his desolation
Bled him through nights of sweat
And cold turkey chewed regret
The plaster wet billboard and pealing advert
Have no idea
What they have unleashed
Brittle as long dead bones
And screaming head
No longer hates
But still sneers revenge
In tattered loose rags
He staggers from the vomiting pit
Emaciated wolf
The grinning scarecrow eyes of merciless
And the jagged teeth of candle lit
The reek of vendetta
Hangs ever about his lips
And woe betide the gun smith
Woe betide indeed the needles
Wet prick
Nothing left to fight for
Other than
A long dead
Lover
He lived in four little rooms
locked behind the door.
And the night shined through
where a light shined before.
A red flame burned ashen gray,
dying on the floor.
So you move yourself along.
And grind on down.
And scrape the path you drag around.
Stumblin’ on the way.
A new day with no grace to say,
starin’ down the ground.
They’re softer lies to swallow
when you’re drunk.
Or when you’re full of faith
and barely saved.
It’s only things that fade.
And leave impressions in the dark.
And demons in the haze.
Sunlight burns night away,
turns darkness into day.
So sing inside your walls.
And make the lamps low.
And watch the white screen glow,
black on grey.
The words that you say.
And drain yourself away.
Another night burned white by day.
Oh my Darkness, I beg you stay.
Are you fated?
Or are you led?
Well either way the moon will grow.
And spread out wide across the snow.
Piled high and ploughed.
Raised between the lines.
And layered across the years.
"Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. " Quote by Rumi
Seek not the right person
Seek to be made right within
Travel to your soul's depths
See what is wrong, repair
Stay long, search, take deep breaths
Seek not the right person
Pray for help in being right
Search your soul, then love comes
If you love at all times
True love will overcome
Seek not the right person
Learn to give of yourself
Freely share worldly goods
Love others as you should
Stay away from falsehoods
Seek not the right person
Learn to build souls up
Reach down fill empty cups
With kind words each day
Let us all be grownups
Seek not the right person
But right within your soul
Not self-righteous and proud
We can be wonderful
A heart just ploughed and sowed
I ploughed myself into a hazy dream
The depths of which I dared not leave
I did not then but now I see
The truths that stand before me
A cathartic cause that they undertook
That echos through the ages
Stories told by mystic men
Of queens and kings and sages
It’s time too pay the devils due
The pain inside me rages
I wrote my death into a book
It’s found within these pages
Behind the reaper, glistening beneath
the fading rays of light,
crude elements of happenstance
lie in its wake, passed over
and awaiting those who glean
the afterbirth.
Yes, there is that querulous
persistence of the poor,
that stubborn cadre of the prescient,
who will peer into our souls
and find us bankrupt,
mind and consciousness already unaware.
It is a curious, stolid procession
passing by--these ghosts
on their ironic quest into tomorrow.
No one may cheer them on; no one
may find a voice to hold them back.
There is no choice, for
we must be content to find ourselves
among the gleaners, though it is we
who sang our welcome to the reapers--
we, who watched the harvest come,
and hungered after it.
And it was we who faced the disillusionment
of barren fields with gleaming bits
of paper bibelot
to laugh and mock us
as we ploughed them underneath.
But fullness too, lurked there
in silent modesty behind the plough.
Patient gleaners know
that down the long, slow hall of history
there is a single echo:
Truth is unchanging...paradox!
There was triumph in the air,
and no man was a slave to it.
I deeply sighed and took a breath
and opened up my eyes.
And it was good.
~
They never went to war; they stayed at home
The young, the old, the unwell and the dead
The women who were not allowed to roam
The men who tilled the fields and baked the bread
Some sat in darkness waiting for the rap
Of letterbox, and soft white feather fall
The silence broken by a dripping tap
Dark shadows cast by street lamps on the wall
The little lads who ran behind the train
That took their fathers off to certain death
Who waved until their arms ached in the rain
Who ran until their lungs ran out of breath
Old men who yearned for youth; just one more chance
To feel the blood flow, hear the battle cry
To wear the uniform and take a stance
To stand with other men, to fight and die
The crippled and the mad, the deaf, the blind
Escaped the fate of many thousand men
Some angry that they had been left behind
Some thankful that they’d never fight again
Women, who with their sleeves rolled ploughed the land
Lit candles, raised the children, hid their tears
Made ammunitions with a careful hand
Kept watch and saved the night time for their fears
So many stayed at home, and stayed alive
And suffered pain and loss, regret and guilt
That they were left, that they were to survive
Within the house such sacrifice had built
Their many names are not inscribed on stone
Those sorrowed souls, so haunted by war’s ghost
Were left to stand and mourn the dead alone
Listening to the trumpet sound the post
by Gail