Best Tubers Poems
The weary ploughman shuffles
along the deserted bridle path,
his day-long work completed,
furrows wound around his piece of land,
just arable enough to provide his daily bread.
His dreary shack is cold and bare,
just a few essentials. Oh, once it thrived,
but that, alas, was quite a long past.
Slow movements help him light his fire,
and hang inside the hearth a pot full
of vegetables harvested from small plots
that once was a sort of garden of his wife.
Waiting for his meagre repast, he sits.
upon a decrepit sofa, thinking of the furrows
and what he could sow there provided
he manages to find the seeds and tubers
for the next Thanksgiving Day.
Furrows, furrows everywhere, so very like
the furrows of his weary days gone by.
The day when he was barely ten years old,
came home to find his drunkard of a father
dead at last from cirrhosis of the liver.
Left school and began to till the land
under the caring eyes of his once-battered mother.
The day he met plain Jane, shy and speechless,
they walked along the banks of a lonely stream,
never uttering a word, never holding hands
until the day they finally got married.
Then, the worst furrow of all, the day his child
Was born prematurely stillborn. That day
he could not mourn. Only his wife cried.
Until some years later she too followed her child.
And still, he would not mourn, bottled-up grief.
Yet he had one firm conviction.
The paths of life lead slowly to the last furrow,
there to find, at last, eternal peace.
Dad is out back,
speaking to his swedes and turnips.
He only grows tubers, root vegetables,
that I sullenly refuse to eat.
There is one flower
a Passionflower, 'Passiflora Incarnate'
that clings to the garden fence.
I could not see any passion in it,
until mum showed me
the creamy crucifix within
the blue and white corona.
Dad belly laughs
as mum, showing me,
piously makes the sign of the cross.
Dad is digging up a real beauty,
that's what he called it,
a 'real beauty',
a soil crusted cannonball,
the monstrous offspring
of a cabbage and a turnip.
He was not a religious man,
but he did believe fervently,
in those strange passions
some have
for cabbage soup
and mashed turnip.
In my window there are two beautiful orchids
They do best in east facing window with morning sun
sheltered for the hottest sun of the day
There are many myths about the Orchid
One of those is the shape of the tubers
It is said that the name orchid comes from the Greek 'testicle'
Seed pods containing several millions microscopic seeds
How awesome .........
The first orchid farmers were Chinese
Already for a few thousand years ago, the Orchid used for decoration
Some would say that the Orchid is a plant parasitism - it's just a myth
The plant can live for example on the trees but not of the trees
One day if you go past my window - see how beautiful my Orchids are
07.03.2014
A-L Andresen :)
Potato Mountain
I will arrive
an habitual escapee
from the rabbit warrens
of central planners
By ferreting north
in search of
breaks in the maze
rifts in the grid
I will follow
a stream beside
the climbing track
and yet higher
To a saddle below
the great ridge
southward along
eastern slopes
To a fine summit
of long vistas
and white gravel-skirts
exposed to sun
Exposed to eyes
sweeping round
the slow wide circle
of arcs in passage
Years to degree
degree to century
century to millennia
beyond human sight
And my own frail
footsteps in iron soil
blown to oblivion
by winds now shadowing
My identical track
passed beehives
thickets and copse
up the potato
To a summit
of concrete pylon
red dirt
and folk art
Where unknown infidels
posed the creative
issue of their
anonymous fancy
In the form
of starch-fat tubers
affixed with parasols
to shade them
And toothpicks to
give them arms
and bay leaves
to make them hair
Hats to render
them style
atop bald and oblong
pates of brown
Wings of sumac leaf
sleek and waxy
to impart mottled skins
flights of fancy
But they cannot fly
like chaparral birds
fitted to wind
and wildness
Unmoving the potatoes
await their fate
on a flat stage
above the world
Three days pass
their number reduced
in gathering erosions
and mathematical decline
Four days
the mule deer
has found them
yet still proud potatoes
Pass from deer
to lion to
slow beetles
upon the soil
And there the
once magnificent
and well-arrayed
vegetable host
Submits bravely to
mechanical escorts
in the brief free fall
to worlds below
Mother said of all the mid-summer flowers she loved best,
The common garden dahlia was clearly her favorite.
Every Spring she carefully hand-placed the sturdy tubers,
Tenderly caring for each one, watched it bravely shoot up,
Growing, until large luscious red, orange, and purple blooms
Burst forth like the golden globular sun they resembled.
Some have noticed strolling through a garden of dahlias
Is very much like sorting through large boxes of buttons, *
All sizes, shapes, and colors waiting to be selected.
Mother saved the bulbs of her favorites from year to year
Carefully wintered them over in the damp root cellar,
Watching for earliest signs of tender green shoots sprouting.
Mother told us after she became seriously ill,
To make sure a quilt of dahlias lay over her grave.
When she left us at the end of that torturous July
For her bier we had a blanket assembled from her beds
Of the species of daisies, zinnias, chrysanthemums
And, as she requested, several pure-white dahlias.
*idea from "dahlias" on Internet
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Written March 11, 2021
For "Flower-Flowers (Imagery) Contest
by Constance La France
Each line contains 14 syllables
When you eat chicken,you get chicken-pox.
When you play polo, you catch polio.
When you color,you catch cholera.
When you descend on people you catch dysentry.
When you like harvesting potato tubers you catch tuberculosis.
When you steal answer you catch cancer.
When you don't like people you catch Aids.
When you eat from a dish in a cafeteria you catch diphteria.
If you continue to tie your headtie you'll get typhoid.
After our yacht was wrecked by the storm
I was washed up on a tropical island.
My two companions sadly had not made it
I found them both washed up and lifeless.
First priority was to bury the bodies
before they attracted unwanted attention.
With no tools I spotted a shallow cave perfect
putting them inside I covered the entrance with
loose rocks that had slide down the cliffs.
Near by another larger cave would serve as
shelter with a few palm leaves and dry grass.
There was even a hole in the roof that let out
the smoke from my fire made from sticks.
I found a stream near by so thirst no problem
collecting nuts and berries I noticed long frongs
that I wove into traps and placed them in both
the sea and stream. A parrot befriended me so
I had good company. The traps soon worked. Crabs
eels and lobsters caught inside a real feast.
With the flint I had earlier found I scaled
the cliffs and set a signal fire unlike down
on the beach the mosquititoes had a field day.
Yet I noticed they avoided a pungent plant
and rubbed it all over what a blessed relief
They soon left me alone. In time I fashioned
some rustic tools and built a hut near the fire.
Near by I spotted both wild pigs and horses
placing some feed I soon was able to touch
and eventually ride some of them making
both travel and hunting so much easier.
Apart from human company I had it all.
I tilled the ground and planted tubers I had
found, irrigation channels kept them moist.
Scoring a tree I kept vague track of time
as first one year passed then another with
no sightings. At long last I saw a sail and
lit my fire. The yatch headed my way I was
saved. With mixed feeling I left the island.
To return there with all I needed, which was
little, a yatch so I could come and go at
will. A few chickens, a calf, cat and a dog.
Some strong tools to till and sow the land.
Lastly a good fishing rod and a feather matress
here I would wile away my remaining days.
A litany of states have we been through
and countries if one counts the past.
From eras gone we came as people who
could turn the soil and make a life at last.
We sailed from bankrupt English mines
and Irish tubers rotting in the ground,
to Ellis Island like human vines
imaging that we had found
a clement life of fruit—rock and blight
could not feed the hungry ones--
and taste the bud of ended plight,
absent ourselves from absent funds.
We knelt in fields of withered grain
and left for other nameless towns,
then westward to the siren plains
of Kansas and Dakota to put down
stakes. The Homestead Act would give us land
to raise a crop and fill the dearth
begot from living mouth-to-hand.
But as we tended rows of earth
through war and fever, Great Depression
and still birth, the land was never ours to keep;
sold off here and there as a lesson
that the suffering shall always weep
in shacks where floors are made of dirt.
But on Judgment Day we'd come to rest
with Jesus. He would vanquish all the hurt
of young disciples grown old with pain
from years of thankless labor on the land
where fathers passed the lot to sons again,
and take us up to heaven as He planned.
But as we lowered bodies in the ground
adorning graves of loved ones dead and gone
with plastic flowers we the living found
that our reward was farther on.
Second Quiz with even broader hints for blind poets
The Princess Anna stood
arms half-akimbo
at the scrawny edge of the receding bank
her Polonaise pollarded down
to her exposed tarsus heels
A wilting comb of fern and shrivelled grass
still clinging to her rump
mud trailing in crusty clumps around the soles
half exposed at the base of the trunk
A soft curling gust about her waist
shook the panticles of her bells
light translucent purple corolla
peeling tinnitus at her lobes
out of the gathering Siberian clouds
sounded like her father calling:
“ Pavlovnia! Pavlovnia! My Darling!
Shake! Shake! Your ample locks!
And let your capsicles pop and drop
Your myriad minute pods
Wafting towards Tsarist towers
Tintinnabulating on troikas and travois! ”
“ Hélas! Hélas! My Royal Pa!
I’m wed for life to nether water-logged land
See how the wind furrows the leathery waters
Licking and tickling my bared soles!
Here with one sawn shoulder and one twisted arm
My hip sags with each dastardly axe-raised slap
Leaning onto the other talus’s side
They say it’s for my own own good
My head was severed at the start
My heart-shaped tresses thick in the heat
Now float on the faint muddy bank tide!
I dream of the day
My Phoenix tubers will climb
And seek the sunrise over the Eastern divide
In lands where the waters drain
Whole crowns of dark-green broccoli buds
Before the sun goes down in the Taiga! “
“ O! I’ll tell your whey-faced mother, My Dear!
Her eyes look long past the Western Gate!
Till your timbers all grow strong with sheen
And we’ll look for a handsome Prince, My Dear!
Sturdy as oak-bound sails on brine!
O! We’ll cut and soothe the grainy boards
Till the dressing-chest’s adorned
With trefoil liana round mirrors and knobs
On the day of your dowry’s prize
For you! For you alone! My Dear!
Down in the lowlands shut in fear! “
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Summertime meals are delicious
sandwiches with sliced tomatoes
green beans cooked with new potatoes
Homegrown, healthy and nutritious
garden vegetables and fruits
a mixture of tubers and roots
Meals are often expeditious
hotdogs and burgers on the grill
homemade ice cream an added thrill
Barbecues can be ambitious
preparation of sauce and meat
could be hours until time to eat
Summer desserts are capricious
peach cobblers or watermelons
freshly cut honeydew melons
Cool drinks can be adventitious
house special mama's ice tea sweet
or lemonade to beat the heat
Summertime meals are delicious
Homegrown, healthy and nutritious
Meals are often expeditious
Barbecues can be ambitious
Summer desserts are capricious
Cool drinks can be adventitious
July 13, 2018
New Constanza Contest by Emile Pinet
Fifth Place
Constanza
The Constanza created by Connie Marcum Wong consists of five or more 3-line stanzas. Each line eight syllables. All the first lines of all the stanzas form an independent poem as the rest of the poem expresses a deeper meaning. The first lines are in mono-rhyme while the second and third lines of each stanza rhyme together. Rhyme scheme: a/b/b a/c/c a/d/d a/e/e a/f/f........etc. And the end verse is made up of the first lines of all the previous verses combined.
If my grandmother was a man,
She could have been the Goliath of the East
Her barns of yam could have been the largest
In the community with her tubers as tall as
The Iroko tree- the king tree of the forest.
If my grandmother was a man,
She could have dance like king David
She could have dream like Joseph,
If my grandmother was a man, many
Beautiful undefiled women could have gone mad
For the sake of his love glowing preciously.
If my grandmother was a man,
She could have been mourned like the mourning
Of an only son in Nkporo land by the Professional
Mourners in a row call to savor their voices of gold
To her corpse.
If she was a man,
She could have lived a life withou limits,
go to the heaven where men dreaded to be crown.
Yesteryears, no lady in Nkporoland could stand her
When she danced, the sand went up in saluatation,
Her legs were made of golden jelweries and her
Voice was honey to the ears of the hearer.
The stars were here friend as a woman,
The moon, her cup bearer and the air;
Bears her hairs in an unquestionable manner.
In the morning, the birds sings for her
Picking at her hair in goodness.
I wish she was a man, she could have been a
Aman in a thousand men.
Help Wanted:
Posse of peelers
needed now
to trim tubers.
If interested inquire immediately.
I opened my heart
Where lies my brook?
Where are thou my Raven?
Our land is in FAMINE
Almost like that of the Israelites
I cried with millions
Wept for an ailing nation
Tubers of yam makes us yawn
Tomatoes puts us all in comatose
Bag of rice in crises
Garri soaking becomes a trend
I longed
I craved
For my Raven's miracle
I opened my heart again
Where lies my brook?
Where are thou my Raven
Raven miracle I seek
Elijah was treated to a royalty by Raven
Fetching him balance diet daily even in famine
He then drinks in a special brooks
Why not me God!!! I want my Raven miracle
Raven!!! Elijah's Raven
Raven !!! My own Raven
The creature with a shiny black feathers
Weird, mythical ...scary yet emit miracle
Smart, evil in disguise ... smells dark omen
Yet fetched Elijah three square meal
Largest in the crow family of birds
I opened again but not my heart
This time it is my mouth of hunger
Where lies my brook?
Where are thou my Raven?
Raven miracle I seek
My voice became stronger for Him to hear
He is my shepherd I shall not want
Even as young lions lack
And suffers hunger in anger
I shouted" I shall not want"
I receive by faith the word
And I started chewing
Pretending to be an Elijah
Behold, food was on my table
I found myself devouring chicken in full
On a table full of varieties of food to maw
But no one else was eating
They all looked hungry and fagged out
I got a disdainful eyeing...
I heard them hissing profusely
Yes, it was like that table prepared before David
The same table God prepared before his enemy
I got their message
They weren't my friends
But there was more to go round
Why become selfish ...greedy
I beckoned to them without uttering a word
They swamped on me ... on the food
Then, someone tapped me on a long chair
Those bed-bug infested chairs ...
" Brother Stephen... why are you snoring?
We are through with the service
Remember that fasting continues tomorrow
And bring along your Prophet offerings
The Lord be with you"
The white-bearded man bid me bye
My mouth was still ajar
Finding expression for my thought
Alayande Stephen T.
21st, August, 2016
A Story from the Sunday Service
O dear palmyrah,
Native of my mother land,
Known as Katpaha Viruksha,
Celestial tree of my birth place
Highly respected in northern Sri Lanka,
Your majestic height makes you,
Tall among the palms, able to
Withstand drought and grow strong!
Throughout the year,
You make us happy with your produce.
Thus, you boost our economy,
And support both land and community.
Edible fruit, fresh juice, fermented drinks,
Syrup, Jaggery, tender fruit nungu and
Boiled tubers are a few of your gifts
To the community of your chosen land.
Well thatched roofs made with your leaves
Beautify the village cottages.
They also help to erect boundary walls
To safeguard property.
Manuscripts are wonderful books.
Salute to palmyrah leaves for
Preserving and restoring the writings
Of great people from ancient times.
Your planks are used to build houses,
Household furniture and utensils.
Every part of you is useful
Great is your service to humanity.
You are the only palm tree
That helps people the whole year through!
Your products are innumerable,
You serve the poor and the rich!
How nice it would be,
If man gave his best to others,
And expected nothing in return
Like you, dear Palmyrah!
Still got hair, don't need a toupee
Even though my ancient body decays
Eat lots of tubers
A healthy old hooter
As I near the finale of my life long ballet
© Jack Ellison 2015