Scything Poems | Examples

Cauht Under a Fallin Sky

A scything rain crops the high reeds.
Never saw the storm coming,
too busy rowing my mind
through its own river.

The ducks and herons have all gone
they have not flown away,
they have closed their eyes,
and like children have become invisible.

My rowboat is taking on water,
mouth open, I think I am crying the sky.
A small rickety landing
crouches from the downpour
maybe, ten slogging minutes away.

I make the torrent torn bank,
the battered truck I arrived in
has a cold,
its engine coughs, as sodden boots
pump a blind escape route
beyond its drowning windscreen.

Stormbound

Gaze out to sea upon blown rig and sail
  in our fright’s strand on stormwatch to the south,
heed the mighty whirlwind, its scything trail -
  Galleon’s Passage to the Serpent’s Mouth.
See the bended trees on coconut row
  when lightning fork flashing turns night to day -
let it sunder, let it rage, let it blow
  across river and swamp in Cocos Bay.
When away are cattle jittery led
  and heron, egret, crane, and frigate bird
take flight for cover when all else have fled
  till a cockcrow at early dawn is heard.
When eerie is the billfish feeding ground
and missing are the pelicans stormbound.


             Written: July 1996


             Trinidad & Tobago.

Winter Hawks

An advent of raptors loiters over mall roofs.
hooded eyes scope the neon-lit spaces,
the concreted waste lands.

We wake to their screams as if this were High Sierra,
not Ohio where parent’s try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets.

Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose federations,
their young, mob-handed and loutish,
the mature work alone,
scything through small birds,
the weakened and walking.

The hawks wing-dance proclaiming their time,
a time of frost-bitten electric barricades,
of bobble hats and mittens,

while unseen, a wind-rattled thorny brier,
recites its litany of seasonal prayers.

Rising Panic

The heart that beats does scream as my chest tightens,
A sound so sharp it bleeds from me, my every will.
Hath only the mind to break my faith and frightens,
My soul under deep now slaved shall ever be still.
The body does succumb to its own writhing,
I beg this moment cease, the play of such filth,
Like fertile field, every second upon me scything,
It reaps from ground the bounty that blood forth spilth.
The eyes spiral through with sight of mind distorted,
While blind despair does spread as thoughts afflict,
My world falls down, both shapeless and contorted, 
I cannot break the grasp that chains constrict.
	Into my every being it has pervaded,
	The man who weeps as his soul degraded.

Harvest

HARVEST

Day after day we are out in the sun
Collecting the harvest before it rains.
Day after day until daylight is done,
Scything the ripe hay to fill up the wains.
They say the fresh air is good for our health;
Far better that being cooped up inside.
But we say it’s good for the farmer’s wealth,
Using child labour, it can’t be denied.
All very well for the artist to say
What a beautiful country scene we make.
But we have no time to pose here all day,
Even though we deserve a well-earned break.
    We have one more day to finish it all.
    On Monday morning we go back to school

Hammerklavier

Beethoven smashes one piano after another.
He shears through keyboards,
a peasant scything hay.
The composer's fingers listen
through touch,
they become deeper, more blunted,
a vibration of mallets.

Frown the brow,
push the plow
make music drive a steamroller.

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
comes a heavy sonata
the hard-nosed 'Hammerklavier'
bulldozing a blunt pathway
into cramped 19th century streets,

where in the absence of safety barriers,
all but one turns a deaf ear.

Hammerklavier

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.

Red Tails At End of Day

Just off the busy road there’s a dirt lane
that leads to a weather-worn covered bridge
where Red Tails gather at eventide.

In the sunlight the birds flicker on hot winds,
rest and watch on pylons and poles,
then rise to hover
over berms and hedgerows along the highway
driving small birds and field mice
into the shelter of scrub and thicket.

At days end they convene;
shake corn-dust from their wings,
bathe in the creek's shallow waters,
then the hawks perch
along the eaves of the bridge
while its oak rafters retreat to shade.
I arrive as the late evening
paints one last aureate sheen
over the slow rippling stream.

Hawks hunt alone - an acreage of sky
can support but one raptor.
I have photographed them many times
as they swooped and spiraled
scything the sky
with their swift-winged threats.

In this light a different picture emerges;
the row of muted birds could be sleeping
yet their eyes are wide open, alert.

A last twilight gleaming
briefly reveals their sentinel forms,
now in the gloom, only their eyes can be seen -
each one a blood-red sunset.

Moorland Ponies

There are wild horses in the heather;
their neighing follows the wake
of hewing wind-wraiths.
The ponies are hardy and stout, they go
in and out of the clouds, slip through
swale and dingle.

The moors are high. You don't feel the altitude
only the depth of the land. When the sky turns sullen
it tilts to smother the earth.
If the scything winds falter, the shallow sod
bogs into sumps and divots

Where trees cannot be, clouds spread
a muffling mizzle over gorse and grass,
a grazing tide carries a spume of chills.
The hills here are thigh deep, rills of dark water
loiter and seep.

The small ponies shake their matted manes,
mist-sprays pool in muddy hoofprints,
the warm brume of their snorts
leads you onward on a lonesome track
for they alone know the steps taken
to cross over each dim acres edge.

Travel with them to a gritstone ledge,
where the heath plunges dale deep,
there above the tall treetops
a bright sky will rise up to meet you.

How It Came About

(a turtle creation story)

Turtle flexed his jaws
as hard as secateurs.
Monkey-See saw
flew up the slippery trees
mimicking
the snapping sound
above the mealy ground.

It was the first Saturday night
and most of the good things,
and most of the mischief
had been sown hours before
but monkey-see knew there would be more.

Fishnet Tights,
the first last-born lady
was crying softly
not knowing why she was weeping and wet.

Her buttery bosoms heaved – we the proto
air-breathing zoo-lings all saw
and most of the swarm grieved
through their embryonic nostrils.

Turtle explained her woe
by opening wide his scything mandible.

When she looked down in it,
Fishnet-Tights saw, red and chortling,
in that ancient maw
his bobbing Adams Apple.

It was then that she became with kids
those troubled knuckle-heads,
the fabled Cain and Abel.

Monkey-See let out a howl
that flew from tree to tree top.

All the scaly birds knew
something big was up.

Turtle winked,
then slept for an eon or two
until all the zoonotic creatures
plumped up - and grew.

Red Tails At Day's End

Just off the busy road there’s a dirt lane
that leads to a weather-worn covered bridge
where Red Tails gather at eventide.

In the sunlight the birds flicker on hot winds,
rest and watch on pylons and poles,
then rise to hover
over berms and hedgerows along the highway
driving small birds and field mice
into the shelter of scrub and thicket.

At days end they convene;
shake corn-dust from their wings,
bathe in the creek's shallow waters,
then the hawks perch
along the eaves of the bridge
while its oak rafters retreat to shade.
I arrive as the late evening
paints one last aureate sheen
over the slow rippling stream.

Hawks hunt alone - an acreage of sky
can support but one raptor.
I have photographed them many times
as they swooped and spiraled
scything the sky
with their swift-winged threats.

In this light a different picture emerges;
the row of muted birds could be sleeping
yet their eyes are wide open, alert.

A last twilight gleaming
briefly reveals their sentinel forms,
now in the gloom, only their eyes can be seen -
each one is a blood-red sunset.

Growing

https://allpoetry.com/contest/2732933-Good

It talks about how I have changed since becoming a Christian. At one time I was nothing short of a jerk. I was addicted to drugs and suffering from a head injury that caused personality changes. I hated everybody, and I did not mind letting you know it. Today Christ is in control of my life and I live to serve others. That is a complete 180 from where I was. Here is the poem:

Preaching and teaching in church
Overcoming obstacles along the road
No anger showing in my voice
No more chasing man from me
Faces are smiling 
Mars is frowning as I succeed.

Scything and chiseling the mountains
Cutting poverty and counseling clients
Working and serving man
Growing is the key
Drugs are out of the photograph
Statues and poetry booming now
A veteran breaking out of the clouds
Fog lifting in my brain.

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14742277-Growing-by-Chrisbreva1

                Third Place (Bronze) winner: October 1, 2019

Proverbs 6

allpoetry.com
My son pay ear to my warning
Cosigning makes you pay
You are working for family
You are not paying for man
Do not go signing papers
You are digging yourself a hole.

Creditors are scything plants
Chiseling money out of stones
Statues are swimming in oceans
Mars is waging war
The dogs are snarling 
Suckers are falling prey
Do not sign man's papers
You are selling children.

Third place winner at: allpoetry.com
September 30, 2019

Gambit

Bat-blind to looming gripe and cold decay,
Clueless shoots jump onto life's gay stage,
Oblivious of Grim Fate's scything designs
That waste with disease and stealing age. 

They wouldn't turn around and at once behold
Slowly waning sires with mean griefs to scold. 
Youth's full plate such wanton cheers parades,
That no eye can see sly time's thievish shades.

Thus enchanted our pleasure-lured victims file
Onto glum podiums whereon their sires stood;
Dancing to selfsame tunes of deaded antiquity,
Decoyed by vanity's unedited rhythmical mood.

While earth's tetchy wheel of raw fun yet turns,
One in the numbed lot in death's embers burns.
To decry such brazenness by that spiteful foe,
Smitten hordes seethe and writhe in brief woe.

In the end every joy-craving dancer sadly goes,
And green offspring pop in to follow their toes.

Hammerklavier

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.

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