Laboring gardeners,
sowing seeds of love daily,
cultivate its peace:-
If you care to listen,
I am on a mission,
To get more people into the garden,
And away from Satan,
Where the good can stay clean,
By joining an army that wants no weeds to be seen,
So the young and keen don't have to carry a gun,
In a place where the trees can keep us out of the midday sun,
And the madness that makes us run for a gun.
The more we garden the more we will have to share,
And the more we have to share,
The less we will care,
If someone gets a bigger share,
Which can only reduce the number who would go to war,
Over who gets what share,
And if it is bombs you fear,
The only blast you should hear,
Would be from water bombs that we take there.
Beauty will always calm the beast within,
If it is a garden you are in.
Please be my Valentine!
I'm getting desperate now
That you will never notice me
Somewhere, sometime, somehow
Even though I've tried
To get some of your attention
I'm nowhere on your radar
I never seem to get a mention
I'm feeling quite neglected
And I'm always overlooked
I wish you would spend time with me
Instead of that new book
So in a last ditch effort
I write you this poem in a card
Please be my Valentine!
Love from your overgrown yard
Dog gone gardeners so long in the tooth.
They are planting beans today along with old Ruth.
Their overalls are straight, their tails are a wagg’n.
By six o’clock tonight, they may both be dragg’n.
Dog gone gardeners, their faces are long.
They are hoeing up the earth, barking a song.
They each have a hankie for the sweat that will drip.
Both of them just let a gas bubble rip!
Dog gone gardeners, you are in touch with the land.
Your radishes and carrots will truly be grand.
It is a lot of work, but in August it will be worth the wait.
Your vegetables and flowers truly are great!
Those bloody slugs have ate my spuds,
Not one leaf left in sight.
I sit all day with my gun,
They must only come out at night.
I've got a plan to catch them,
With nets and traps and snares.
Set my alarm for three AM,
And quietly creep down the stairs.
I set my plan in motion,
Traps around my vegetable plot.
Come on then you slimy sods
Show me what you've got.
Then the onslaught happened,
The gathering around my plot.
One must have caught the trip wire
A cascade of salt came tumbling down,
And killed the bloody lot.
18/9/2021
Yard work guys
Could not do enough on their first visit.
They did so much weeding
I went out and helped until they shooed me away.
There were three or four of them.
Expensive? Yes, but they stayed three or four hours.
The entire first season they took care of the yard this way
Every single week but they were expensive.
We cut them back to every ten days.
Three or four guys working their tails off, shaming me.
Year one.
Year two.
They have cut their crew down to two guys.
They stay an hour or two the first month.
The next two months they are here about forty five minutes.
Price remains the same.
This is year three.
One guy barely gets out of the truck as it drives by.
He does the yard in twenty minutes. No weeding.
Same money, because we fought them on the raise they wanted.
Yes, this may be sad, but we live in the country.
We are lucky to get any yard guy at all.
Next year it will be a six year old with a push mower
and we will probably have to give him a raise.
A gardener’s soul
Eventually becomes
One with the garden.
Melding with the plants
And the soil, gardeners raise
Living beings from
The tiniest seeds;
Their beauty is astounding;
Lovely blossoms smile.
I watch the gardeners at work
And as they rake and mow
I wonder, when their workday ends,
About where they all go.
I doubt if they have homes with lawns
As lush as those they tend
Or flower beds like ones to which
Their talents they do lend.
It's possible the only place
Their spirits may be buoyed
By what they do is at the sites
To which they've been employed.
I’ve a garden full of uninvited guests; time to weed.
Tobacco worm, on my tomato plant, don’t spit at me;
you were not invited to partake of my produce!
Mr. Milkweed, why do you love my yard? Your sticky secretions make me itch; I do not want you in my cabbage.
Mr. Beetle, I gave no permission for your party; your rowdy friends must go. They won’t allow my beans to grow.
Ms. Wood betony, you may stay; your nutty flavor and fresh dandelion leaves, will enhance my garden salad. It was nice of you to drop by for lunch.
Ah, a lovely dog rose; how did you know that other uninvited guests,
were giving me a headache? I’ll harvest your medicinal berries to cure it.
You too, may stay; oh, how I love rose hip tea.
With uninvited guests, you can’t be too careful or too picky. Some are good, others bad; but I will not…be spat at, without retaliation!
Here, Mr. Coopers hawk, have a tobacco worm and leave those bunnies alone! I plant extra lettuce and carrots for them.
A GARDENERS DAY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A gardener's day starts at dawn, their hobby.
To feed the birds and water plants,
and perhaps a chat with the local Bobby?
Then exterminate some red ants.
To feed the birds and water plants, plus weeding.
Check greenhouse temperatures right.
What weeds were pulled composted if the needing?
Then to clean his tools shiny bright.
Check greenhouse temperatures right, warm not too cold.
Time now for a breakfast break.
A cuppa with a bowl of cereal, warm gold,
then some brown bread toast he'd make
Time now for a breakfast break, no, just eat some cake!
A gardener's day starts at dawn
Now breakfast done, back in his garden, grabs his rake,
He mows his lawn, just right it's shawn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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You small community of men
devoted to the gentle arts
why would you cross those foreign seas
where war awaits to break all hearts.
Stay in those gardens you make green,
sustain your rank amongst the trees
and don’t donate to wars grim scene,
the wages of your liberties.
Ignore the rant of those fool lips
that sanctify wars fight and kill,
always the vampire life’s blood sips,
always are some who to war thrill.
Your honest work’s a noble thing,
there’s no reward in enmity,
just pains choral where t bullets sing
their hymns of death and agony.
Walk on the paths amongst the flowers
and let your strength make fruitful keep
to tread the uplands of your bower
not trenches of infernal sleep..
There are roses in my garden.
I love their sweet perfume.
I pick their blooms and take them in
to brighten up my room.
There are spring bulbs in my garden.
Oh how I like to see
their first green spears
and then their flowers as a spring gift to me.
There are butterflies in my garden.
They've come to have a nip.
I help the petals to unfold
so they can have their sip.
The birds are in my garden
and filling it with song.
I know when they are building nests,
summer's here before too long.
Perennials and annuals
take up their garden place.
Each does his best to decorate
my precious garden space.
Off and on for twenty years he had lived on the streets
Oh how history repeats over and over again
Turning once proud women and men into a shadow of them self
Slowly destroying their health each time they enter that den
So on and on this destruction had went
As further and further he had drifted away
Such a dark and lonely way and causing such suffering and pain
As his final days seemingly wane with each passing day
But I seen him standing right over there
On the steps of old Saint Mary's Chapel
Talking to Father Shappell with a broom in his hand
From what I understand he's done with the streets as he would tell
I never see any trash around the chapel anymore
And the gardens look better than they ever did before
Seems this man knocked on God's door and the Lord had him stay
Isn't that just Gods Way one which so many others simply ignore
In The gray of winter, when the birds don’t sing, there is frost in the ground, there is ice in the stream
When you have shivered so long that you could just “Scream”
Just envision the joys, the flowers of spring
Smell the air, so warm, so serene
The birds have returned, hear the song that they sing
There is bounce in your step, hey; it is back on the scene
You sample the fragrance, as it drifts on the breeze
With dirt on your hands while you are down on your knees
Wow, it has happened again, it is actually spring
“Dream”
The weeds that grow upon the lawn
Continue growing when they’re shorn
Though treated with a herbicide
It’s no surprise that none have died
The chemicals that you apply
Should make them shrivel up and die
But only seem to feed and nourish
Makes them grow and makes them flourish
Don’t sit there feeling all forlorn
Regarding such a sickly lawn
There’s one solution guaranteed
To eradicate, that awful weed
Get up, go out, put on your coat
Buy yourself a nanny goat
© John W Fenn 21-08-2009
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