Best Plows Poems
Manger Shadow
A shadow lurks behind the manger bed
Swaddled by indifference,
Creeping behind
Lowing cows
And
Bleating sheep,
Power without power raising up a hoary head
While in vanity dim shades attempt to weave
A gloomy thread into the scent
Of frankincense
And
Myrrh;
Endeavoring to cover ears of prophecy,
Encouraging ignorance
With busyness in crowded streets
Of travelers taxed,
Bowed down with burdens;
No Gloria’s heaven sent
As shadows pass in front of starlight
On highways straight
Deserts wild
Mountains leveled
And star-struck strangers
Asking only for directions;
Where flowers,
Blooming in the wilderness,
Lay trampled
Beneath pilgrim’s feet;
Trying to drown out
Amen
And
In Excelsis Deo
Shouted out in triumph
To wide eyes
Keeping watch
Beneath olive trees
Rather
Longing to smother a baby’s breath
With a snarl,
Rejoicing only in the anticipated silence;
To leave no room at the inn
For goodwill
Or
Shalom Eternal
Yet cower in a nightmare’s chaos,
Breath held in,
For a kingdom lost by victory
Already claimed;
Futility, the unwelcomed guest,
Birthing fury
That pounds upon the chest of truth,
Stalking the Word protected
By holiness,
Claiming dice unfairly loaded
To howl
In rage
As justice and as peace now kiss –
As swords and spears
Rise up
As plows and pruning hooks
To tend the vineyard of the King
Then sing out the great glad tidings
On a mountaintop
Where people walk out of darkness
Into light.
Categories:
plows, christmas,
Form:
Free verse
Long ago Man soaked alters in blood,
while sacrificing animals to God.
And ever since Noah and the flood
plows got hammered into sword and rod.
Civilizations grew and flowered,
only to vanish with little trace.
And men of peace were labeled coward,
while women were chattel, kept in place.
God was always at war with Mankind,
smiting pagans with His Holy wrath.
And a compromise was hard to find,
there was no hope for a peaceful path.
Jesus didn't think of God that way,
wanting to remove hate from His faith.
And preaching love, taught us how to pray
purging souls of unclean thoughts and wraith.
He challenged what the people got taught
and they demanded blood for His love.
And crucified Him, yet His death bought
us eternal life, through God above.
He was mourned and laid out in a cave,
where for three days, He suffered in hell.
And then He arose, and left that grave,
sought His apostles and bid them tell.
God The Father now lives in our heart,
and blood’s no longer offered to Him.
For through His Son, Man got a new start
and our fate no longer looks so grim.
Categories:
plows, bible, easter, faith, feelings,
Form:
Quatrain
I had seen - her calm, cool, composed - like a soft soothing breeze,
Though she could turn tempest or tornado or weakly wheeze;
Like a formless cherub in an endless garden of love,
She covered the earth while racing on cloud-Morgan above…!
Lovely you are! I said to her, Love's living conqueror!
Aren't you, yet, noisy nomad, gypsy, or mere wanderer?
I am vagrant sure, she said, and a tireless traveler,
I have jailed you, yet, in my sachet, like a prisoner…!
It was when I moved much away from the maddening crowd,
And when pondered over her bewildering words aloud;
Enlightenment dawned in me like the wisdom of Buddha,
Many great truths got revealed slowly like Brahma Chakra...!
True as very truth is my brief existence in the breath,
Who on this earth exists, devoid of her, from birth to death?
She murmurs, whispers, commands, demands, like Divine Spirit,
She creates! Destroys! Takes to zeniths! Grants highest merit…!
Soft, serene like nectar secreting in a rose flower,
She sleeps in; grows glows like a flower on a green bower;
Consciously conscious! Unconsciously unconscious! Solace!
Plows through the interiors, like Yacht through water, flawless…!
Shifting my state of mind, working like a leaven within,
Sleep, wake - like my mother - in feasting and fasting she's in;
She is the beginning! End! Center! Whole! Totality!
She is the starting and ends of the whole humanity…!
What an engulfing like a fiery inferno and smoke,
What an empowering and overpowering soul-stroke!
What a change, like unique bloom! Great is the life-giving breath!
What Calm! Peace! Tranquility! Bliss! Awesomely saving meth…!
With her, no stress! No strain! No phobia! No mania!
Her free-blow within free from frightening insomnia;
Abandoned to her eternally evolving Spirit,
Body and soul reach zenith beyond the mundane limit…!
Growing high, I gladly come to the realization,
That I'm part of the classic universal cognition;
Wherein my inner unity freely fondly extends,
And to the external eternal harmony, it tends...!
Knowingly? Unknowingly? Willingly? Unwillingly?
Breath has adopted me - calmly, cutely, and cautiously!
Has made me a flute, lute, melodious rhythmic consort,
I play on! I am played on! Till I reach restful retreat…!!!
16 September 2021
Categories:
plows, life, love, mother, music,
Form:
Rhyme
Poor old Farmer McGillicuddy
He’s somewhat of a fuddy-duddy
He plows with an ox
All progress he blocks
No wonder his corn tastes so cruddy
Categories:
plows, farm, food,
Form:
Limerick
Entering the cave of a wide open mouth
Pulling on the slippery uvula
Reaching for the nasal cavity
Taking a breath before leaping for the eye socket
Where I view the world that plows the field of future
Then taking dirt road veins to a house on 123 east Sycamore
Where Under the bed in my room is a cranial box of treasure
Opening the box exposes the parietal cortex
A single mother loving four children
A family of five on welfare
A mother in and out of the hospital
A ten year old boy visits mom on Sunday
A confused orphan on Monday
A mother enters holy sleep at thirty-five years of age
I love you mom
My son KJ often asks of you
As I close this box and return to the dirt road of veins, now paved
My moist cave will echo, only the love of a mother
=======================================
I miss my mother on special occasions in my life, and often wonder what things would be
like if she still lived? However I have been blessed to have known her and I live a
prosperous life for which I'm thankful for.....
Categories:
plows, family, mothermother, mom, love,
Form:
Free verse
The warmth no longer comes
it seems to only leave.
The furry ones, all
caught in hypnotic disbelief:
hardening ground's
taken root
where once
gardening grounds
(forsaken, mute)
were once and again
makin' fruit.
Each beast, shaking
like a leaf
(though, truth be told
I've only ever
seen 'em dance)
as if to compel
the sun to
sidle up
'n stay a bit.
The butterflies are all turned
to windblown, drying leaves.
The biting clouds of gnats
are now
the biting cold of early flakes.
All hatched and reared
(the secret thrush, the ungainly, splashtering loon,
the burly snakes)
as evening hurries home
to be home for the night.
It's so early, so late.
The fatted robin's gone
just as the field mice hid
from barn-now-lapcat.
This constellation of crows,
a raucous perch, tried
that hiding ploy: their clotted knotted
silhouetted faux-leaf blackening hide out
where the leaves’d lived but crows are not
meant to blot the low sun as they’d plotted...
And so it was as so its been since Oh, so ever since -
a bird of prey, answered their
plaintive caws with painted claws -
a fracturous startle from above
a crash! a cry! a scattering!
one down, one murder
still.
Nothing softens, nothing greens.
No flowering as Southern urges
force flocks into making V-lines.
Each nest left: all break routines.
Summer is souring, as frost emerges
and last-one-picked, the pines -
lefties left in left field;
icing soon, their needles their shield
and, the coach never intervenes...
The light more slow to show
more tugged and bent to slant.
The sunshafts seem to push
the cold ahead as snow by plows.
And for our part we too as well
well, we turn away, turn indoors.
We turn our dreams to
make-it-through this.
We turn our collars up,
and too, our eyes to floors.
We turn our (each seems to)
thoughts inside this shell
not towards Inner but
rather, of course, truly from-
far and away from the
Cold & Falling, closing crisp.
How unlike the Scholar's Cup!
Our husks indoors,
our thoughts follow
but burrow deeper still.
Don't blame the light
for not keeping company
so deep where hides
a fearful, frigid 'you.'
It's Autumn
all turns on
one point.
It's Autumn
Fall burns on.
It's Autumn
sun burns on
one point
(of light.)
I have never felled so alive
as now.
Categories:
plows, autumn, philosophy, seasons,
Form:
Free verse
For John Hink
I left your stool in my kitchen corner where you sat, a crooked grin on your weathered face that had seen a hundred sunsets. Fields you tilled by horse-drawn plows now contracted to clusters of London Bespoke Suits leveraging corn oil markets.Patiently you'd appear before supper as I made my way through the pantry pulling canned goods I lovingly processed and freshies I gathered from neat rows in my garden. We ate in silence, knowing words had long-since lost their weight. Clouds drift over our final resting place now, our souls drifting peacefully along, only visiting in dreams.
...your sister Ellie
6/9/20
Categories:
plows, absence,
Form:
Prose
When relentless grief plows your heart
And intolerable is the pain
Forget not, to sow your dream's seed,
At harvest, you would know your gain!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
14 May 2022
Categories:
plows, dream, hope, pain,
Form:
Quatrain
Over a hundred years of miracles
dating back well before statehood
Pioneers who made the desert bloom
Though no one thought they could
Fighting off constant terror attacks
plows in one hand, rifles in the other
Working eighteen hours a day, six days a week
One for all and all for one, everyone a brother
Rising from the ashes of the Nazi holocaust
six million maimed, tortured, killed
Three short years later, declared a state
that only they and God willed
650,000 Jews, half of them new refugees
armed with hammers, saws, and brooms
fought off the attacks of Egypt, Syria, Jordan
Lebanon, Iraq, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
All while taking in 875,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands
resettling them in threadbare quarters
Today, boasting a world-class economy and over 9 million people
Israel is the world's face of hope, her story never equaled
Categories:
plows, history, holocaust, hope, jewish,
Form:
Rhyme
Flowers of many kinds
Many colors
Many scents
Fill an untouched field
Bees and birds fly between their petals
Living a blissful life
Dew settles on each petal
Shimmering like nature’s diamonds
Reflecting dawn’s light into tiny rainbows
It is the beauty that only nature can create
Man doesn’t see the beauty
If he does he just doesn’t care
He comes in
Plows everything down
Covering over every plant
Blackness is the new color
The bees and birds leave for new homes
The sweet smell of the flowers
Replaced with the bitter scent of petrol
Cars replace the beauty
And the flowers are gone forever
Categories:
plows, angst, sad
Form:
Free verse
It Takes A Whole Village to Raise a Child: The Farmer
It has been said that it takes a whole village
To raise a child; How does a farmer help
Families raise the children?
Farmers live near the village; and together,
Everyone helps raise the children.
How do they help?
The farmers near the village grow food to sell.
They plant, tend, and harvest vegetable crops.
Veggies: lettuce, beets, cucumber, and tomatoes
Collard greens, cabbage, onions, and potatoes
Green beans, artichoke, peanuts, the list and work
Goes on and on and on—
Farmers hire many workers to harvest their many crops.
Products are then, sold and sent to many vendors.
Although there are still some independent farmers,
Some farmers, like those in olden days, grow on rural farms.
Families, men, women, and children working together,
Using hoes, beasts of burden and hand plows to work the soil.
Children helping along side watching adult examples—
However, these days, big agriculture businesses own farms.
They use huge machinery to operate their many acres.
Food producing farms: planting and harvesting to feed masses.
Their products, like smaller independent farmers’ products,
Are sent to markets in their homelands and abroad.
In the process of providing food and cotton for people,
Agriculture businesses and farmers alike set examples.
Good or bad, the children watch wide eyed
And ears perked!
Categories:
plows, food, on work and
Form:
Narrative
February winds pound the siding scattering sand left by the snow plows through the gray angry air. The house seems full of small noises and little else. The cat has taken up his guard post in his rug-covered tree house and purrs in tune with the ping of the hot water pipes. Even the dust has settled.
empty chairs
surround a guestless table:
I stand cup in hand
Scanning the tidy kitchen with its Wedgewood-blue counters and rustic farm-scene border, I note, the cabinets need a good rubdown. Murphy’s Oil in hand I approach the oak with determination, and a soft pink flannel rag. The scent of lemon oil, crisp and clean, wafts past my nose. With great care, I climb a gingerbread chair to reach the highest cabinets over the stove. I balance, praying the seat cushion doesn’t slide out from under my feet. Opening the double doors, I view a stockpile of holiday décor, now unused. There below the paper Easter Eggs, I see them and a tear comes to my eye. Empty now, decades old, of all different sizes, red satin boxes, Valentine Hearts, forgotten.
disturbed dust
floats past my eyes:
the clock bongs once
First Published in haibun Today Fall 2013
Categories:
plows, sad,
Form:
Haibun
The journey begins, with hope and wonder,
And years seem endless from curious eyes.
Time moves slow before death plows us under,
To reveal its nature and sanctifies.
Days become minutes as we grow older.
Speed of the journey increases with time
The weight of the journey we must shoulder
Decisions and obstacles we shall climb.
We'll never return from where we started,
Or measure the depth of our first stride.
Memories tell of where we departed.
The journey leaves evidence we can't hide.
Life is a gravel road all must walk on,
As we count the nights and await the dawn.
contest The Journey Begins
Categories:
plows, journey, life,
Form:
Sonnet
Prayers descend like acid rain from
oligarch-soaked manchurians, stumping
for elected office, praising hybrid
demigods, passing out vouchers to the
peasants.
A slow rumbling-
part of the night-sounds-of-curfew;
descends like fire ants.
Cleaners of the guilt, hidden in plain faith,
unable or unwilling to walk, feign
blindness, darkness helps.
Cellphone towers only reflect scripted
light, as memories of real sunshine, fade
to black. A good cup of coffee is hard to
find, all the fine beans were swept away
early on, replaced by dancing bears,
politely ignored. Thunderclouds, imagined
in shapes of our founding fathers,
encourage the deluge, slowly ascending.
Underground-
a grim band-of-believers watch (again)
a pirated tape of their favorite '80's movie,
'They Live' from the fabled city called the
new capital in 'The Postman' Minneapolis..
while the tormented sounds of-
plows
scraping overhead, and
hydrants,
bellys full, feeding power washers,
cascade
over hardened
faces.
05/11/14
minneapolis
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
plows, allusion,
Form:
Free verse
I ride my horse, I ride it fast, I’ve never known it to complain,
it doesn’t speak, it doesn’t weep, it takes me through the pouring rain.
I give it oats, I brush its coat, I keep it warm in Winter’s days.
close to my home, close to my kids, close to my heart it always stays.
I found a mare, I’ve oats to spare, it now has found its company.
if she is cold, and shies away, it knows its friend is always me.
a year has passed, a colt was born, I watch them all run in the field,
and as I work, as I grow old, my love for them can’t be concealed.
no pulling carts, no pulling plows, nothing but grazing in the grass,
my kids will love each generation, and care for each one when I pass.
Categories:
plows, animal, horse,
Form:
Verse