Silo Poems

Josh Moore Montana

Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.

Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”

Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.

I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.

She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.

Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.

The illusion of timeless silence

The ILLUSION of a TIMELESS SILENCE
Drenched the RUSTIC creaking barn
Its tortured wind scarred face
Snarling at the SWIRLING winds

A lonely BLOSSOM sprouts atop a fencepost
Mice scurry about an empty silo
A naked scarecrow dances in a barren field
Dreams carried away on the dust

They had returned, the children’s children
To piece together a family history
To sit and weep while viewing pictures
Of weathered, beaten faces

Twisted, tarnished features
Unable to EMANATE a SYNTHETIC hope
Causing a sadness to consume
The ILLUSION of a TIMELESS SILENCE

She Is the Wind

She whips and whirrs, wild and wanton
Gaia’s grasses nearly come out of the earth
She is in a frenzy, stirring things up and away
At first it is scarves and paper plates, then there is an eerie calmness.

A quiet, deadly, silence and a black sky at two in the afternoon.
She is back, sounding like a freight train, choosing her victims.
She begins flinging cattle, logs, and sheds.
There goes the silo! Twirling up into the sky like a top.

On the Richter scale she is a four; and she is damned proud of it.
Which house will she take? She chooses her victims helter skelter.
Her anger and rage are in full blown whipping and swirling stage now.
She is diabolical, ruthless, unforgiving. She is the wind.

Augur Auger

Augur Auger 
David J Walker

It was all in the spelling
Actually
An e here or a u there 
And the foreshadowing’s 
Changed in strange 
Rearrangements 

After all, as a young augur
What was I to the grain 
Augered into the silo 

And yet if a Crow cawed
From a barbed wire fence 
My uncle would turn the pickup
Around
And head for town

Discussing the meaning in 
A mid-morning 
coffee shop séance
Where everyone partook of the
Smoke and the black liquid

Was it rain or death foretold
in the beak of the blackbird

Everyone had their own opinion 
One farmer left saying
He was a Christian 
And would have no part in
The dark discussion 

He would see them in 
Church on Sunday

And just as augured 
Everyone went back 
To his own filed 
Gaging a yield in the
Formation of clouds

Passionate Pacifist Plea

Should hearts obey man or God?
This is so dirt simple — 
Two sheaf ears in a pacifist pod

Fear thee anthem thunder
more than the
firmament lightning rod?

There’s no question
which one
gets the soul loyalty nod

Doesn’t dove eyes
starry follow  the Celestial sky will?
Compassionate commandment 
engraved in stone:
A holy decree, “Thou shall not kill”

This passionate pacifist plea
deserves an universal bleat

War paint ain’t peace palette proper
Napalm hope being
dropped from a camouflage chopper

Silo echo prayers,
whisper incensed Arrows 
are wavy boasting
Cemetery sepulchre rows
ere manicured revelry neat

Olive branch naysayers
extend digital particles fungi
Angry flow bloodstream
trigger the plutonium release

Obey a loving God,   not hateful man, 
ought not we?
Bullet dodge thermal extinction plan
is this scarlet ink sob, 
pacifist plea

On the Lane

There’s a place called The Lane,
that time forgot.
In the center of towering green trees
sits a survivor of time,
one lone ruin,
a stone silo.

Specter of the farm that once
graced the hills and valleys,
each crack and crevice
has a story to tell.

Thos who live on The Lane,
show their respect
for it is a place
of peace and contentment;
inside, one can feel
the rising and setting sun
upon rich land that once
birthed stalks of corn,
filled cattle with abundant
nourishment and fed
the family who farmed there.

History has a sacred place here,
for in the world of frantic cities 
and noisy suburbs, 
the lane remains
an audibly silent sanctuary
where spirits of the past
revel in the shade
and souls of today,
can listen to their stories,
with ears of the heart.

When I go within,
I sit in contemplation,
of those who built
the lives we have today
and of their struggles,
for the lane reveals
secrets to those who
are willing to listen.



6-14-2021
ALL YOURS (Jun 15) Poetry Contest
Brian Strand

Summer On the Farm As Related By Britches

Summer on the Farm
As Related By Britches
By:Tom Wright
8/7/2006

Britches gets up early
To greet the breaking of dawn,
A stretch, a scratch,
And if sleepy, a yawn;

Old Elsie the cow
Anxiously awaits his pull,
He hopes when they’re done
His buckets near full;

Later he’ll throw
The chickens some scratch,
By then his mom will yell ”Pancakes”
And he’ll go eat a batch.

Tater peelings and buttermilk
Will make up scraps for the hog,
And while he’s at it
He’ll sail a biscuit to the dog.

Then with four buckles on
It’s off he goes to the silo,
For his fair entry’s ration
Of molasses and Milo. 

The gate still needs fixin
On the property that they lease,
And his mother’s making pillows 
So she’ll need down from the geese. 

He’ll re-pen that Billy
And put the piglets with sow,
Fork hay in the mangers
And head out to plow.

He’ll spend untold hours
Following a mule named Blue,
Which causes me to ponder
Who was smarter of the two?

Britches next year graduates
Bringing news quite alarming,
That whatever life’s role
It would not include farming.

Cornfields Are Ouchy

Cornfields are ouchy, I know. I am from the corn state – Iowa.
Corn grows on tall stalks, out in a field that has gobs of 
fat green worms.
You need a tractor to get through it.
Or a tank.
But farmers do not have tanks.

You cannot see anything except corn stalks when
you get there; rows and rows of them.
Taller than people. There is no running. Moving 
is difficult.  There is a corn smell too, but a smell
so unique to corn, it cannot be understood. 
It must be lived.  

The corn husks are tough, rough, they hurt your hands.
The stalks are painful to step on, 
The corn itself is nothing like the canned corn you eat.
Hard as a fork tine, please do not try and bite it out here.
Cornfields are ouchy and itchy.
I know.  I am from the corn state.

It Reeks Of

Backdoor sound byte diarrhea hurls
Sticky tongue bowel overflow
Little green froggies say the Apollo man from Mars
ain’t gonna fighter plane land
in a nuclear day or so

Sphincter hole toilet bowl saliva swirls
got an oven baked brownie glow
Little kyrptonite toadies say the Venus-born superwoman
wanna lead Pilate the flyby band,
be a peace hawk sis bro’

Such lyrical lying done on a mythical scale ... 
it reeks of,
you don’t wanna know

Lying kings and queens —  
Roaring eagles of the blue sky 
are on a soaring, white cloud predator prowl

Flying below the radar;
dropping constipated truth bombs,
which nay palm skin burn
with strategic flush, royal greed accuracy

Lying low bow silo, with uranium stealth arrows, 
in the waste land dead zone
Noxious fear vapors on a vulture mushroom blow
Fiery serpent wing plume shadows 
give more territory to own

Much lying done on a global kill scale ... 
it reeks of death,
and you don’t wanna know that smell

Extinction level pyre inhale
W2 Three trust me,
you don’t ever wanna nostril feel
that rotting, bone ash exhale

The View

The View

You can see the prairie
from the empty square
that once was a window
Its beauty is a painting
done in a master-artist's hand
Waves of grass twist round
each other when the wind
is too restless to pick a direction
From the rotted timber 
that once was a front porch
you can hear the eerie call
of vast emptiness
The silo, folded in upon itself
in an April tornado
Most of the walls pepper
the land that once was
someone's vivid dream
Wind plays its piccolo
up and down the random
prairie dog holes
The house sways in tune

Human Aquarium

A silo water casket scintillates glow 
Green sea-weed blanket, bright red and yellow.
Pebbles and gravel, in a crystalline show.
Fizzing of bubbles the aquatic-air combo.

A vista of motion, flashes a rainbow. 
A bunch of humans thrown, in the confined gizmo. 
Dull green eyes, swim an ocean pseudo.
The drift of life, it's all real although. 

The wriggle of fins, of the snooty goldfish. 
The ripple of gills, of the elite angelfish. 
The humble jellyfish, and the snail all sluggish.  
The crabs and corals, the intricate gimmicks. 
Each and every home marvels marine mimics.

Our penthouse aquarium of ornamental beauty 
We all are sealed in our filial duty.
Unbreakable, shatterproof, cocktail glass of captivity...
 Mundane activity, glows in endless sanguinity. 
Then one day, motionless fish in sea..
will  be flushed out, quarantined to liberty... 
will swim across free ....the ocean of eternity.    

 

 




Placed First in Brian Standard Jan2019 Contest

Garden Roots

Garden Roots

Drawn by the feeder,  seeds like a silo, the colorful and small birds, landing and perching, not too close, skittish and scared.  The tree of life with a plethora of  branches.  A tiny bonsai forest designed for fairies and microscopic wildlife. Butterflies trapped inside a house-size net, landing so gently the hairs on my flesh cannot feel the sensation. The garden ever changing and I with it,
as I tread upon its sacred ground. Soaked by sun, rain or cold from snow, the garden with outstretched arms.

bellicose bouquet
branded by beauty stirs weeds
— pulled up by their roots

6/7/2018
Mick Talbot’s haibun contest

Lutas Das Esquerdas No Mundo

Lutas das esquerdas no mundo

Todas as lutas
da esquerda
duram anos! 

Querem liberdade 
saindo 
como verba de orçamento 
pagamento em dia certo 
daria para isto aquilo 
o que sobrasse guardado 
de todo o assalto a silo 

AH o que falta 
as esquerdas
é imaginação 
e o jeito na circunstância 
é mesmo a revolução.

Neo-Amerikan Philosophy

There are new thoughts
Phoenix rising
from the ashes of the old days
Neo-Amerikan philosophy
is a walk on the Wild West side
Gun-slinging strange love dimensions,
old underground frontiers freshly silo demented
It’s a new pre-emptive day
for old-gen mushroom hippies
Shooting fungi bullets up in the air
from their fissure flower guns
Dropping the mystery day psychedelic H-bombs,
watching the stealth fireworks ...
A winter glow that never fades
Neo-Amerikan philosophy
be assembling 
the war hawks around the Oval table
Pass martial law,
no more congressional vote
Democracy got the hanging chad Marx rope
Trumped up national security probable cause
triggers the panic protocol
Giving the impotent Republic voters a Caesar
Apathetic dummy crash 
the cracked Liberty Bell experimental car — 
no more Philadelphia date freedom
Neo-Amerikan philosophy
Fourth Reich theology
New Bolshevik revised history
Pre-emptive strike,
no more Union loyal dissent
Neo-Amerikan philosophy
be Phoenix rising
Old Egyptian idolatry ways
independently witnessed by 
a new summer Fourth of July
nuclear winter plumage blaze

All For One

tre three penny das ta do
 juniper juniper the opened mass
 turn over your yarn
 to the tormentors
 stir the pot
 breach of peace

 the ancients taught
 a silo bent through an accord
 the time has come
 all for one

• Short Silo Poems
• Famous Silo Poems
• Best Silo Poems
• Read Silo Poems
• Long Silo Poems
• Silo Quotes