Best Scything Poems
Was it at the close of wakeful light
Rough cutting field and town,
The dark blade-cleaving deep,
Eyebrow sharp and scything down,
The landscape hacked to sleep.
And if it were my dreamless sight
Of haloed streetlamp flicker,
Murdered shadows spring
To lope and slither quicker
As the chimes of midnight ring.
What if the eyes cannot adjust
And discern the rise of day,
Screening past the chilly tomb
That so engulfs and hides away
In a heart of darkest gloom.
What if I no longer trust
Evaporate of hearthside yore,
And apparitions die as must,
Would I freeze forever more
Beneath the sheet of nightfall's dust.
Categories:
scything, life, love, mystery, nostalgia,
Form:
Standing hoeing garden stones
Eyes awash with tears
As memories flood back from
More than sixty years,
To the little village churchyard
For which my dad cared
And which duty I, as a child,
So very unwillingly shared.
He dug the graves, cut the grass
Scything carefully around
Each sheared and flower strewn
Humped burial mound.
All the paths were of loose stone
Which, after ever spring self seed,
Just attracted and harboured
Endless stretches of weed,
Each year it was my job
To shim and hoe them clean
So that those spick and span paths
Matched his carefully mown green.
I was a spoiled, lazy, idle child
Complaining every single year
But dad was quietly firm in spite
Of my every tantrum and tear.
Now he comes gently back to mind
As I hoe my stones, laid for easy care.
Just for a while it’s the old churchyard
And we are both back there.
Good job done he says
As we stand side by side
And we both inspect that path
And my chest swells with pride.
And now I stand here
Leaning on my garden hoe
Thinking of things I wish I’d said
All those many years ago.
But the past is the past
And we both know it’s for the best
That I wish his memory goodbye
And let him slip gently back to rest.
Categories:
scything, childhood, dad, growing up,
Form:
Rhyme
KILLER
Saturnine sleeper of the night,
Soaring slowly, out of sight,
Sleekly shadowing the gloom,
Silent harbinger of doom,
Innocent assassin, surreptitious, sly,
Stainless scandal slipping by,
Scything swiftly through the dark,
Hark the herald warning: Shark.
Categories:
scything, nature, sensual, sexy, silver,
Form:
Rhyme
The January snow has thawed and gone at last
And in its wake a single snowdrop stands :
It grew unseen beneath a shining shroud
Which melted to reveal the hope of Spring,
While daffodils all spear towards the sky.
Already rooks have built their lofty nest
And robins, seen in pairs, fight over scraps.
The brightly coloured pheasant, struts on by,
His tail, a rapier, scything through the grass.
Against the light a dancing cloud of gnats
Hangs lightly in the clear fresh morning air,
Where hazel catkins, swinging from the trees,
Puff clouds of yellow pollen to the winds.
Eternal joy, to mark the signs of Spring !
Categories:
scything, nature, seasons, spring, daffodils,
Form:
Sonnet
Flippers so languidly beat
As mates float in the deep
Coupling dreamily on a lazy tide
And when it is time
She shall lie
Upon a secret hollow
Known only to her
And the King of tides
To pledge her young before a setting sun
And when it is time
They will rise from a sandy womb
To begin their panic in search of the sea
Sculling and skittling they
Inch their shells
Scything sand at terror
From swooping gulls
And cranky crabs
To giant hands that hold no pity
Yet those that nose
The frothy sea first
Begin a quest that will ultimately test
These gentle souls
To the brink of damnation
Upon oceans deep
And yet we weep
And yet we weep…
Poetry Contest “Turtles”
Sponsored by Cyndi MacMillan
Aug 2014
Categories:
scything, animal, sea,
Form:
Free verse
An advent of raptors haunts the scant gray woods
or loiters over mall roofs.
We wake to their screams as if this were high sierra,
not Ohio where parents try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets,
tend to flocks.
Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose federations.
Their young, mob-handed and loutish,
the mature work in pairs
scything small birds, ripping through
the thinning, the hold-outs,
the weakened and walking.
And the first born listen with the last of us
while the hawks dance proclaiming their time.
A time of fervid litany and electric barricades,
of bobble hats and mittens,
while a black brier
raises bloody thorns in chary praise.
~~
Categories:
scything, life,
Form:
Free verse
You know they are coming
See the dust in the air
Feel the ground tremble beneath your feet.
Can't quite see them
But you know they are there
Suddenly your face is white as a sheet.
The Horsemen are riding
Your world is ending
No use complaining it just isn't fair.
Swords scything down
Trumpeting stallions
The battle is over so don't even care.
Man's castles are falling
His caverns no respite,
Armies are dust in a flash of might.
The judgement is binding,
The deep dead are rising,
Their sad faces form in the fading light.
You're torn and your tattered,
The scent of blood heavy
Old Earth is shaking, you try to run.
The darkness is closing
You better be ready
The Horsemen are coming, the end has begun!
Categories:
scything, dark, fantasy, fear, visionary,
Form:
Ballad
prisoner of retribution,
he was buried under a salt lake,
elusive, his crotch,
not far from stings of wasps,
the blood spills,
he would wonder how to catch the truth
in black river,
wrapped in imperforated causes,
leaking with curses,
black conjugation of greeds,
with the grief unbuckling the grudges,
uncut wounds, festering under the skin,
the stink starts scything, he starts
folding the denials, in self praise
SATISH VERMA
Categories:
scything, art,
Form:
ABC
(Let it be recorded far and wide
That the sun shone brilliantly with pride
And bright azure were the skies
The day he entered Paradise.)
Slight of build,small of frame,
His ginger head weel kent throughout the game.
A buzz of excitement ran round the ground
When his name the PA did sound.
His presence promised electric thrills
As he paraded his rich range of skills.
He made his name out on the wing
Where he could make the ball dance ,and almost sing,
A dip of the shoulder,ball tied to his foot,
Skipping nimbly over a cruel ,scything boot.
Whenever he was forced into a fall,
Back he bounced like a rubber ball,
Ready to launch another mazy attack,
Body prepared for more pain on the rack.
Finally time made him hang up his boots,
He retired to Uddingston ,the place of his roots
There were dark days,they say,of drink addiction.
Thanks to family and friends,he survived this affliction
And went on to entertain guests at his old alma mater
With jokes and songs and his bright ,breezy patter.
Glorious were his years upon that hallowed stage
But the finest hours arrived with his advancing age.
Was it a stumble or losing his grip
That alerted his doc to his physical dip?
Those limbs,once fluid with beauty and grace,
Were now imprisoned as though with a steel carapace.
When he was diagnosed as having motor neurone,
That's when we saw the true strength of Jimmy Johnstone.
More cheerful than ever, he offered all comfort and solace
And made the world a much happier place.
We shall never see his like again
But,thank God,the memories will remain
As we recall Wee Jinky in his football guise,
Now Lord of the Wings in Paradise.
Categories:
scything, inspirational, nostalgia, sports, uplifting,
Form:
Rhyme
Sister Aloysius rings the bell
iron-railing straight she stands
habit flapping blackly
her triple-bolted thin-lipped smile
pursed against assault, or love,
while children shuffle past
their tulip heads averted
from her scything gaze
Jimmy from the Chinese
chip shop, smiling, filing past
What is so amusing?
children freeze, ice-blooded
in breath-held silence.
"Lovely morning."
Sister Aloysius
unlocks her bolted lips
hisses a crack-small stream of air
allows a Yes to escape.
the children
march, backs braced
into the shadow
of school
Categories:
scything, childhood, education, nostalgia,
Form:
Free verse
Daybreak
So cold the night, like dead man’s hands,
Alone the weary watchman stands
cloak wrapped against the scything breeze,
His salt burned eyes cast to the seas.
Charts, geometric instruments,
In Illuminated casements,
All glint and gleam by candlelight,
Dancing devils in darkest night.
Useless tools for starless skies
adrift and blind until sunrise,
The crew uneasy, standing too,
Awaiting dawns first signs of blue.
Then, with a hint of indigo,
Heavens wide edge begins to glow,
Slowly, nights darkly shade rolls back,
Bright gold expelling deepest black.
Our spirits rise to greet the dawn
as details of the world, redrawn,
by the rising fiery lord of light,
Appear to our returning sight.
Categories:
scything, adventure, blessing, boat, courage,
Form:
Rhyme
prisoner of retribution,
he was buried under a salt lake,
elusive, his crotch,
not far from stings of wasps,
the blood spills,
he would wonder how to catch the truth
in black river,
wrapped in imperforated causes,
leaking with curses,
black conjugation of greeds,
with the grief unbuckling the grudges,
uncut wounds, festering under the skin,
the stink starts scything, he starts
folding the denials, in self praise
SATISH VERMA
Categories:
scything, adventure, allegory, angst, animals,
Form:
Why did your hand
become the fist ?
You were thinking about the indignities
heaped upon the lake,
when you were retrieving a song
of freedom from the depth of questions.
There was no capitulation.
You went on opening the congealed-
blobs of blood to know
the keynote of violence.
The sectarian hate.
It outlives the love of brotherhood.
You want to go back to, from where
the jungle starts. It had swept
away the snow-white young
peaks.
Footprints of some movement.
Can you see that ?
Satish Verma
Categories:
scything, art,
Form:
ABC
It’s voice causes the shiver
its name causes the stagger
tremours boiling
fettle downpouring
Heartbeats panicking
families isolating
Like a turret, it oozes
like a trumpet, it blows
emanating shockwaves
spurring Venom
hissing sparks
scything down humans like grass.
Some say the states gave it light
But Daddy says “Wuhan”, without delight
Basking with the thought
“Does Wuhan Gloat,
is it a calculated attempt to free land
Or Divine justice sent from God’s Hand”?
Cities,laid on Siege
Borders, Borded and armed
Starvation creeping
bereaved weeping
unemployment surging
Media, reeking.
But on the Ocean’s Horizon
Africa resides
Its citizens, quite in oblivion
Of the fangs of Poseidon
For whispers says black is a curse
But i tell you, is the reverse.
Born to toil and forever toil,
That’s our only curse;
Brazen for the Saharan sun,
we Suckle the anopheles
Drink from potholes
What then is Covid 19?
Tell Covid 19 that Am black
Wuhan won’t knock on my door
For Toiling from birth to death,
My body is brazen against It
For am Black,
And am food for the anopheles
Tell Covid 19 I banter with lions
Feed the fleas
And though I drink with cows from the gutters
Typhoid fears my face
And though I sleep on the grass,
The cobra bites me not
Tell Covid 19 I endure hell on daily basis
And that it’s but a speck
To that log I carry
That if the world sinks on it
My black Africa would stand
For am black.
Categories:
scything, death, emotions, eulogy,
Form:
Light Verse
Beethoven smashes one piano after another.
He shears through keyboards,
a peasant scything hay.
The composer's fingers don't grow deaf,
they become deeper, more blunted,
like mallets.
His apartment is disorderly,
tools and equipment
are hidden in Dresden figurines,
in elderly Delftware,
ball-peen hammers crammed
into the whittled stems of goose quills.
Augers, grinders and rotary tillers
are rendered into themes and motifs.
Wrecking crews hum and stamp,
tables thump out allegro dissonance.
Into this din and demolition
plows a heavy sonata
the hard-nosed 'Hammerklavier'
bulldozing its trenchant path
into the cramped streets;
where in the absence of safety barriers,
a defiant deconstruction
has begun.
Categories:
scything, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse