Long Tillage Poems

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Re-Planted

He was airlifted to another place. 
The heath, the dales, 
the ridges, the high moors,
they all began to slip away 
under throbbing wings. 

Occasionally a woman would approach,
a silk moth in the semi-gloom
of a night flight;
he was tucked semi-consciously
into a droning life-support system.

When you are unearthed,
green roots tug,
mud and twigs come with you. 
Pools and sediment
make their way as seeds and marsh
traveling with your incubating soul.
Places you have slept on, 
waded across, 
had breezy sex over,
they tether you to tillage and turf,
to your life,
even as you fly far from it.

He began to plant bits of himself 
into the soil of his new home. 
He hid mossy stones amid plastic rocks’
left lichen trails 
on the marble floors of shopping malls. 
He recreated his own clay 
from the sand-shifting soil he found 
in an alien loam.

Slowly the land began to own him.
He dug himself into the past
of this remodeled wilderness.
Became a native of rooted and uprooted things. 
When he was asked:
To which country he belonged?
He would show the dirt 
under his fingernails.


Eden Unearthed

The apple fell to earth. It was bitten through
it rolled; mossy soil coated the tooth-cleaved part.
Already grubs were working their way out
of the pith creating a teeming mulch.

Adam had fallen asleep yet again.
the overripe grapes fermenting in his guts
turning to drunken snores.

It was the flood of the moon. 
Eve squatted behind a mulberry bush 
wishing she were more fair and slim 
like the angels in her dreams. Her body was changing, 
tidal rains washed her blood
and that travail begot spawning buds,
the tillage of arousal.

The apple was changing, dissolution morphing 
into beauty; the earth had gone into labor.
This had not happened in paradise before,
this was self-regeneration, death, and life, 
the copulation of dirt with air.

Eve’s belly swelled, growing as round and burnished
as an autumn apple. Instinctively Adam built a nest
of straw, green shoots and saliva.

She grew large, gravid, and snappish,
stamping her feet impatiently;
this birth would be a paradigm of progeny to come,
a dewy innominate offering
quilted from angelic and demon seeds
and she knew not what to call it.

Strike While the Iron Is Hot

Cuz while ya steel got
moxie, don't nix chance if only a dot
before death finds 
     flesh rotting alot.

A self-actualized fringe benefit
     as I racked up
     orbitz round sun -
     with increased measured,
     (albeit neglected) ragged, and
     shot thru tattered (turn shroud) -
     regarding chronological yardage
brought to my dimming wattage -

sputtering third eye blind, sans
     hindsight surveying extensive
     emotionally frenzied groveling with
     a lifetime penitential wreckage,
whence urgent critical (update)
     foisted upon formerly entrenched
     hermetically sealed voyage -
sequestered self wrought fallout,

     viz long stretches of 
     time irretrievably gone with the wind
     found me averse toward
     commingling with village -
peopled within sin king
     precincts of Lake Woebegone
     joyus kneaded livingsocial 
     natives, now visa

     vis (nee this past
     and present atheist)
     discovered the healing power
     of powder milk biscuits,
     when accommodated within Norwegian
     bachelor farmer vicarage),
qua pained obligation now
     imposed kickstarted mandate

     to pay dying wage
clearly written along,
     the sub weighted psyche walls
     (over time) easily read
     across my wrinkled visage,
where former cumulative
     years of existence
     pitched yours truly

     figuratively teetering upon
     precipice of abyss gave vantage
     written in telltale creases
     countenance spelling umbrage,
against me - asper tonnage
     schlepping psychological Matthew
     Scott Harris "baggage,"
wrought from decades

     worth of uncultivated tillage
cuz n'er did I gather rosebuds...
     during prime mortal teenage
stretch, thus present
     day agonizing suffrage
yawning chasm miserably houses
     bleak (Dickensian) testimony,
     sans recovered anorexic

     (NO...NOT... NEVER 
     bulimic), but feebly
     endured desultory stage
punctuated quasi (moat)
     towed riddled rattle trap ship
     of state into deadly scrimmage
defies propped up 
     moxie succombing unrelenting
 
     weathering, unforgiving savage
nasty, brutal and short sabotage,
wherein futile - short 
     changed growh opportunities 
     forfeited developmental stage
opportunities introverted 
     vehemence doth rage.

Tillage

Tillage
by Michael R. Burch

(a coronavirus poem about stasis and potential for recovery by reconnecting)

What stirs within me
is no great welling
straining to flood forth,
but an emptiness
waiting to be filled.

I am not an orchard
ready to be harvested,
but a field
rough and barren
waiting to be tilled.

Keywords/Tags: stasis, potential, hopelessness, hope, recovery, recovery from disaster, reconciliation, tillage, raw, barren, field, tabula rasa, blank slate, blank verse, isolation, seclusion, distress, distance, distancing, palimpsest, plow, plowing, sow, sowing, seed, planting, farm, farming, social behavior, society, America, planet
Form: Rhyme

Replanted

He was airlifted to another place.
The heath, the dales,
the ridges, the high moors,
they all began to slip away
under throbbing wings.

Occasionally a woman would approach,
a silk moth in the semi-gloom
of a night flight;
he was tucked semi-consciously
into a droning life-support system.

When you are unearthed,
green roots tug,
mud and twigs come with you.
Pools and sediment
make their way as seeds and marsh
traveling as your incubated life.
Places you have slept on,
waded across,
had breezy sex over,
they tether you to a tillage and turf,
of lived experience
even as you fly far from it.

He began to plant bits of himself
into the soil of his new home.
He hid mossy stones amid plastic rocks’
left lichen trails
on the marble floors of shopping malls.
He recreated his own clay
from the sand-shifting soil he found
in an alien loam.

Slowly the land began to own him.
He dug himself into the past
of this remodeled wilderness.
Became a native of rooted and uprooted things.
When he was asked:
'to which country he belonged?'
He would show the dirt
under his fingernails.


Garden Guards

Each petal, leaf, each vein, each thorn, not any one the same,
Stand tall in there duty protecting Their tillage from the dark winged shadows circling the sky's mains
The wind slightly changes and they sway so waiting on the rain.
Each is there own colour with shades all with different names.

Same race, different names, different colours , different shapes and different mothers.
Many layers and characteristic ways and some blooming, others blossoming and some like to sleep away there days.
Sometimes the wind peels off a layer, and at times the rain lay heavy weighing them down until they drop to the ground, leaving no armour.

The sun singes there edges making them burnt and different to the eye.
Sometimes they are open,sometimes closed, but there's one thing that everyone knows about the beautiful, elegant and regal garden guard's , 
that in all there differences, one thing they all were created with in traits,
That they all smell the same, Subtle but intense, delicate and strong.
It's that distinct fragrance, it's the smell of the ROSE.

.

Eden Earthed Over

The apple fell already bitten upon,
a mossy soil coated where the tooth-cleaved.
Soon grubs worked their way out
of the pith
creating a teeming mulch.

Adam had fallen asleep again,
in his gut overripe grapes fermented
turning now to drunken snores.

The apple was changing, morphing,
the earth had gone into labor.
This had not happened in paradise before,
this was self-regeneration,
the copulation of dirt with air.

It was the flood of the moon;
Eve squatted. Her body was changing,
tidal rains washed her blood,
travail begot a tillage of arousal. 

Her belly swelled,
instinctively Adam built a nest
of straw, green shoots and saliva.

She grew large, gravid, a tad snappish.
she sensed deep in her belly
that this coming birth
would be both sour and dewy,

an innominate delivery for sure
riddled with good and bad seeds,
and she knew not what to call it.

When I Took the Old Way to Ames

I passed spreads of field
the places where farmers
made livings from soil.
The view enticed
but I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop
but I couldn’t forget
times spent on uncle farms
before I went to college.
The morning sun shone
but memories in college
in Ames shone brighter.
There I learned
the language of love
the concepts of life
that I held in my hand.
Each book of psychology
opened worlds that lived
inside me.
I learned to see
they were always a part of me
as were aspirations and dreams.
A Grant Wood mural on a staircase 
in the university library
said life began with tillage,
and from that stemmed
our crafts and arts we embraced.
Years later 
when on break from work
I walked the steps
to see how the mural
survived the hands of time.
It survived as I
but I never outlived memory.
One less-travelled highway
had lost its name
but I recalled the roads
taken with college friends
as we learned to live our lives.
Form: Narrative

Ode To An Oklahoma Locksmith

Nationwide Insurance twas on my side yay
cuz, earlier this July forth
     two thousand eighteen ja way
windows closed, doors locked, and

     car keys visibly splayed
     on driver seat oye vay
feel free to call me a horse's ass today
utter anxiety compounded,

     plus unable to locate master key,
     thence fodder for poem and more to say
rifling thru boxes without success,
     an impulse arose to call road

     upon learning policy
     doth include locksmith service,
     ah felt less doggone snappish,
     and uttered hoo ray

though modest aye,
     congratulated awesome,
     fulsome, and handsome
     self on quick thinking,

and automatically became less tiresome
     pondering for no particular rhyme nor reason
     (as a getaway) Panama or Paraguay
then immediate decided,

     sans ditto explanation,
     but no how and nay
yet honest to dog suddenly felt
     like a young lovestruck lad

     during month of May
and without further delay
a compulsion arose
to putter along, though

     momentarily gazing heavenward
     and counting (just beak caws)
     glistening black crows
plus painfully aware

     a spike in recurrent
     "senior" moment of forgetfulness grows,
thus starkly aware significant rustiness
     increasingly, frightfully,

     and chokingly coats
     lix spit tillage harrows
resuming schlepping dishabille
     crotchety bedeviled aching

     body electric irksome
with fringe benefit (such as
     momentary lapse of reason)
     quite aware mettlesome

ness of youth nonrefundable,
     non-reliable, and non-retrievable,
     and guaranteed continued
     pricking, viz nettlesome

degenerating aging telomeres,
     sensate perspicuity, and oxysomes
leaving a once robust person some
what discombobulated 
     and easily toilsome.

In the Summer Fields

I’ve been walking for a mile
The woman stalking me has been sniffing for a while
She has become my second shadow
I hope I am not the source of her sorrow.

I quicken my steps on the quagmire of illusion
She hastens with her shadow on the plinths of delusion
One thing is sure: I’d out-walk her.
She makes her resolution as well not to remain in the rear.

Summer’s boiling breath is upon us, her and me
I thirst for solidarity with the sun and the sea
I wondered what she hungered for —bread or wine
The hays are all scorched on this tillage not far from the Rhine

I know her not from anywhere
Does she know me from any square —
Trafalgar or Madison or Time?
London and New York, in summer, raise hell and chime

I study the space between us
Not too wide as from navel to guts
The fields and their ogling lights begin to dim
I walk faster, I breathe harder, I skim

She follows up with the same verve
Through serpentine paths, I lost my nerve
But at the last corner of the woods,
Summer filtered out, summoning protocols of the hoods

I never saw her again, nor her shadow, so restless
Someone told me that was her last summer, so contentless
For me, that was indeed my first;
The first in which I skimmed over a hirst.

These, I understand, are end times
Both for festivals and serotinal matters in terms of dimes
But I mustn’t hasten through them,
Even though they cause me to run the phlegm.
Form: Rhyme

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