Furrow Poems | Examples

Not Anne but Gabrielle

Not Anne, But Gabrielle
by Gabrielle Munslow

If you want me to take you to another time,
take my hand.
Don’t furrow your brow.

Slick with storylines,
my tongue twists
like an adder.

Poetry spills—
some good, some bad,
but always real.

I write of suffering.
I write of death.
I write of want.

No pretty, prophetic prose.
But I can still
slip a ditty off my toes.

I am Anne with an E.
No bird.
No net ensnares me.

Still, I rest,
and language thrills my bones.

Time stills—
or quickens.
Language isn’t luxury;
it’s necessity.

Down rabbit holes I go,
deep and twisted.
I braid my breath into roots.
I speak to the dirt,
and it answers.

Once a girl.
Now a woman,
retelling her youth.

I
am not Anne with an E.
I am Gabrielle—
with poems for sale.

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© 2025 Gabrielle Munslow. All rights reserved.
This poem may not be reproduced, distributed, or performed without the author’s permission.

Shady Way

Your cheeks are tending to the ground
And I’m so slow today
Look at the memory I’ve found
Before it flies away
The lifeline furrow on your palm
Runs through the hills and dales
Inside the storm it could be calm
Despite the blowing gales
My glasses gleam with gold and brown
I have to go again
I cannot see what time is now
Could be the same as then
No winds, its stillness here today
Along the waters green 
I’m following your shady way
To let you know I’m in.

Maroochydawn

A year has passed but not July’s shiver,
  the bed is warm and in the air a chill
yet it’s not the cold that makes me quiver
  but the eros of our winter idyll.
She is up and rising at the cockcrow,
  her slumber over, her allure begun -
she comes to me parting her wet furrow
  and I am inside the gates of heaven!
That matrix of life and morning glories -
  that corona from sunup to sundown
and brightest of all celestial bodies,
  my lips desiring its luminous crown.
All else forsaking at dawn’s early light
I lay smitten from our midwinter night.


            Written: July 1998


Note: Maroochydore is in Australia 
         on the Sunshine Coast, Qld.
         I lived there in the late 90s.

How Now Slough

Although
it’s a hard row to hoe
a rough furrow to harrow
and a tough trench to plough
there’s many a meadow to mow
I hereby avow
and tho' it may be news to you
farmers have the need
to sow their seeds
where milkmaids milk the cows
swineherds feed their sows
and shepherds have their pie
and eat it too
in Slough now

Volcanic Eruption Of The Soul

Unmet expectations strike hard,
hurting where they languish long.
Unkept promises are blows earned,
hitting where they find no resistance.
Unkind words are slashes harsh,
ripping through the calm conscience.

The dormant volcano within the soul 
then gets the upsurge of melted psychic mantle 
in the crust of brittle tolerance,
that collapses in the caldera cradling the vent, 
reaching the magma chamber in the core.

The soul erupts the lava in the wild,
burns the gentle patience as it flows.
Uncontrolled, it blazes the heart, 
undowsed, it singes the sane senses.
The smoke billows up thick and intense,
clouds the deranged essence.
Words rise like Sphinx from the toxic ashes,
perish the patient face of mental restraint.

The flame surges in the stream of neurons,
no longer the carrier of conformist signals.
From the volcanic inferno of the soul
the erupted fiery lava called anger flows
in the torrents of blistering words,
scalding whatever comes in the way,
blazing a furrow for the reticent life.

Actual Axion

Axion, gone actual?
Energy low? Mass?
Sing within us all, moon full!
Shine in colored casse...

Opopanax, gears a-grim?
Young people these days!
Teeter on the crater's rim?
Success always pays.

Tamarisk tree, waking up.
Dreams from this one fly!
Covenant of drinking cup?
Do not deign to die...

Squirrel in deepest burrow?
Not this day, O my friend!
Fields with salt a-furrow!
Broken past the bend!

Winter snow, thy undertow.
Cold, take hold. O spring;
Which way leads to warp? Which woe?
Serpents, how you sting...

Gold on floor of old ravine?
Better leave it there?
Yellow eyes in skull, thy scene...
Press but don't despair.

Hope, tragedy. Rail or risk?
Horror, right this way!
Hell and Heaven, in a whisk!
Hatchet, who to slay?

Angels, demons, sacred art?
Cherries taste a-tart.
O explosions, tear apart!
Arrow, seek the heart!

End Times, tunnels, breath. Wind chimes.
Doubt, do not fail now.
Doom and Death dance on the dimes!
Best not to ask how...

Eat me

Eat me,
a voice hymns in my ear.
I snap back
I can't eat you.
Please,
the voice begs.
I furrow my eyebrows,
impatient.
"You don't exist."
But you can hear me,
the voice says lightly.
I stay silent.
If you eat me,
you can take all my softness.
You can take all my whimsy,
you can take all my pride,
and all of my serenity.
I know the person you crave.
And I know you're not that person.
I know it keeps you up at night
knowing you aren't
who you wish you were.
Eat me.
Tear me to shreds.
Rip my heart
out of my chest.
To become who you want to be,
you just have to do something
this version of you
would do without flinching.
Be yourself
one last time
to be someone
you can be
for the rest of eternity.
Eat.
Me. 
~ B.J

Snow Storm

Ice aligns us for a stretch, witness to
This furrow of tears in me that Winter falls with you

Our footprints press for assurance in the snow
But will with this night lead out and go

So the hearth that warms the outside of the window
Be beneath your skin and spread my heartache's glow

On you, darling — on you.  Will you remember
This heart as another passing Winter?

And to our season's mum
Too old within our sun                 

Now a clothed morning bartering —
'Lest the green clover under also be seen, melting.

New Year Resolution

The spent year sinks in the captivating cauldron of history,
trace a fading furrow of memory in the shadow of setting sun, 
etched in the realm of remote remembrance weary,
as the new months come with blooming buds of promise.

As Janus opens for me the door to the new beginning,
after my time crosses the corridor of the worn-out year,
I’d weave unseen dreams in the tapestry of future ensuing,
the unsung songs I’d fondly sing in cycles of new seasons.

My children who’ve grown aspirant wings of freedom, 
have flown away to the seamless sky they have chosen.
In the new year I’d do whatever it takes for them to return 
to the longing nest I’ve woven for them in my heart.

In my earnest pledge in the new year I solemnly resolve,
I’d kindle the candles of affection and care in my hearth.
The dreams eluding me in the years that have gone by, 
I wish to fulfill before they’re abandoned in the wrap of time.

The yeses i left unspoken

How often have I hesitated,
poised on the brink of "perhaps,"
before unknown paths
that whispered my name.
And there, where the threshold opened
in fevered silence,
I denied the wind its wing,
consecrating the moment
to the still womb of my refusal.
The "yeses" I left unspoken
are grains of light
falling from Mary's womb,
while time holds its breath
in the eternal pause of the Annunciation.
They are Peter’s trembling
on the cusp of the rooster’s crow,
a flickering flame
gathered by forgiveness,
reforged into stone.
The "yeses" I left unspoken
are unseen wounds
in the body of the risen Christ,
traces of nails never driven,
silent as Veronica’s veiled face.
They are Gethsemane’s agony
stripped of words,
the sweat that drips blood
among the gnarled roots of the olive tree,
forever awaiting a dove.
Yet even those unspoken "yeses"
rest in the heart of eternity,
like seeds in the deep furrow
of untouched earth,
and already they stir,
woven with grace,
in the mystery of an hour yet to come.
They are hands brushing the hem,
the blind touch that heals,
they are God’s patient waiting,
brighter than any word unsaid.

Fire In The Tongue

Unkept promises are hard blows
that hit the psyche unexpecting.
Unkind words are harsh slashes
that rip through the essence undeserving.

The mind becomes the fire in the wild,
burns the gentle patience as it flares.
Uncontrolled, it boils the blood,
undowsed, it singes the sane senses.

The scorching words stoke the fire,
the smoke billows up thick and intense,
clouds the disbalanced conscience.
Words rise like Sphinx from toxic ashes,
perish the patient face of restraint.

The flame surges in the stream of neurons,
no longer the carrier of forgiveness signals.
The mind turns into volcanic inferno,
erupting fiery lava called anger to flow
in torrents of blistering apathy,
scalding whatever comes in the way,
blazes a furrow in the timid life.

Reflections on dear life

I stood on a boulder in the Andes
And stared at an albatross flapped
Its wind vane on top a sycamore.
I don't know why it stood there
But I know it struggled to claw
In the jaws of the branches.
Today I clambered same crown
Gawking on the blue empyrean 
Then glared at vultures picking entrails
Of the white quills of the cross.
Oh! I don't know the bullets in the chests
Of a black widow.
Squeaking hyenas gathered at the carrion as well.
Oceans welled the furrow of my face
And my red balloons thumped and stamped.
Is that how the sparkling stars feign from the nights?
Is that how the roaring lion whisper in feign silence
While fed upon by black ants and leeches?
Well, I guessed I have to breathe each gas 
As my very last with golden wreath.
For dear life is a candle wax that glitters and feign
In the twinkle of crystal balls.
I will thread on the seas and oceans as well
With fragile toes.

equine

Equines 

Two horses and a foal graze on my land
twilight, gentle rain

I  think of the days when ploughing 
the field, a sturdy horse

a long furrow on rich black soil
what more is there to know

stroking a flank, the warm aroma of
a horse arises in still air

dreams are endless, in daylight 
three boulders in a field

The Harmony Tree

My thoughts of this world lie troubled and profound
As I pause drenched in the golden hues of copper fields
Stretched to the limit of the bronzed horizons that crowned
Beaming with the aspiration of assured hope revealed

As the sun wraps reverently all around
Where old familiars have settled to retreat
I have come where tranquility and serenity abound
Looking for a place of peace

I stand uplifted by a fabled tree of legendary rhyme
That laid its roots sublimely patterned in story
To furrow richly in the swelling soil of time
Gently resting within its landscape’s glory

It grew ever so magnificently
Harvesting the goodness of adaptation
In perfect unison with nature's severity
Relinquished in the passing of generations

Strong and textured with roughness and age
From the scars of hardship it dwells
In its simplicity and synchronicity-a musical page
A soothing lullaby-a song of peace and farewell

And in that golden light I am reminded we must
In a world amid calamity, despair and strife
Find ourselves in this place of calmness and trust
Amidst gardens of hope glowing with harmonious life

mule minded

Mule minded 


Plough, my mule
a furrow in my name 
the almond tree blossoms
there will 
be another furrow 
in my name
memories collect 
spent bullets 
in a mass grave 
in pursuit of knowledge
while yellow flowers
at the edge 
of a memory 
wilts 
not robust enough 
to plough another furrow

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