Silos Poems

a famine child

by his mother's side
a famine child cries 
while a suburban family sits down
to eat more then they need
in a land so rich with wealth
grain stocked piled 
in silos so high
so much more than the little consumed

a blind eye is turned
to the horrors of the third world

The Dinosaurs At Webb Dock

Early morning and the gantry cranes
at Webb Dock look like long necked
dinosaurs lining up to drink from the river - 
and the sky is aglow as it might have been
when tinged by the first hint of that asteroid 
slamming into Yucatan on the other side
of the world 66 million years ago.

This is 2025 and no asteroid threatens  
our fragile planet, yet more subtle 
things do -  things that reside in the dark
precincts of the human soul that pour
out pollution and in silos and undersea,
stoke embers that could at anytime
break free and incinerate us all.

Southern Crops

It's early January,
and the fields are wet and muddy.
The rainwater sits and slowly soaks
the fertile soil. Heavy machinery
has been silenced and put to rest.
They shall sleep through Old Man
Winter and awake next Spring.

Beans, corn, cotton, peanuts,
and sesame seeds no longer
flood the bounty fields of plenty,
because every crop has been
harvested. What's not in the silos
has been sold to markets near and far.

EU talks

EU talks

They sat in a splendid room around a big table
talking about Gaza and the war in Ukraine
I avoid saying, "war in Gaza," as it is nothing 
but slaughter of the innocent 
Naturally, the Hamas was a terrorist entity
and ought the be disbanded and replaced by
worthy people, presumable with an office
Brussel
Regarding Ukraine, EU must help Ukraine
to win this war sending money to by one 
thinks buy weapon and Russia was the
unspeakable aggressor
Not one person appeared to have read 
the near past, that this war was not needed 
Russia didn't want NATO near its border
therefore Ukraine had to be neutral
We know the hysterical reaction when Russia
tried to build a base in Cuba , nuclear arms
were ready and the locks on silos opened 
As before the world sided with the USA
Hamas and Hezbollah, bona fide organizations
defending the right of the Palestinians 
and other groups, against Israel's aggression 
what we think is of no interest to them.

Am I Light

Am I light or dispersed star
Scatter or straight to all earthly uneven
Whether the stray comet to unfollow
Chaos or chord to sundry upheavals
Mortal cry pebbles the enshrined path
Luminious moon guide where gleam
Wise that turn to sightless wanderer
Eternal furnace alloy even those flak
Whip of whims encage all beacons
Noble deeds dacay ,utterly numb
Trying our morale in turbulence of time
Comforts or clutter of needs ,indefinite
Men walk towards golden or grey gates
Surrender in mounting rungs and ropes
Dreams shatters like lifeless dunes
Homeless sands beneath benevolent sun
Arrays of aim pierce like pungent arrows
Win or wane for fit to survive in moor world
Featherless souls in sheer free fall;
Can there be ceaseless outbound fountain?
That fearless and frisk in favors
Solo my spirit sway all silos earth bring
Let mind sleeps sight on alpine snow
The genial breeze to free and glow
Altar the heart with care to unrest
Torch of mankind ablaze with brave
Holy human share blessings that unbent
Wish the nourishing rain to furtile and flow
Generous greats render and row.

Pepe's Coffee Lounge

I was one of the cool set,
navy blue duffle coat, scarf around
my neck, seated at a table
in Pepe's Coffee Lounge
discussing Baudelaire 
and T.S. Eliot and the demise 
of the political elites.
The conscription ballot hung 
over our heads helmeted
in a flowering of uncombed hair
in the winter of 1966.

We thought the world was about
to tip, that the old regime 
was coughing its last 
on Craven A and Camel cigarettes.
Booze was cheap and jobs
chased us down the street. 
In a hundred buried silos,
annihilation was just a push 
of a button away.
We partied hard beneath
the threat of that mushroom cloud.

We're old now, sit under the cloud 
of our own thoughts, replaying
scratchy, worn out tracks 
retrieved from the sleeves 
of our neural LP's. 
What we tore down back then
has been replaced with more
sinister demons that eat away
at the collective soul.
In the end, everything
is just reabsorbed.
Some of us still frequent 
coffee shops and discuss
Baudelaire and T.S. Eliot, 
still write poetry,
shed a tear 
at the melancholic beauty 
of a setting sun.

A Place Not Meant To Be: 12

#12: Space Ghost-ed

Let's naught add to Space's new oddities,
we've space between our ears, with a spare room.
Silos hushed ... Grace spots our credulities,
our space mid-ear's blessed--a brain stained attune.
Post-Life; same space; new point--afeared darkness,
when question, "mark," life's course--you must enter
price if not taken; parts fatal, parts guess,
choose--right proves true, and--wrong haunts lamenter.
Existence; same brain space--darkness remains,
(dark alley, blind spot, or scary neighbor)
sensed points in life--in your space, your caused stains,
trifle (take) space. As written, (take) detour,
and highly fill the space between your ears,
to the accords of The Book of Life ... cheers.

Sky Dancer

                    Sky-Dancer
Why do you hate me so?
Upon wind up,
there are endless ways to go !
But you choose the fireplace,
jet streams, moving cars, nuclear silos 
and the neighbor's bbq gang meeting, 
in your flying @@@@@@@ hurry to stray from me.

Are you demonically charged?
I now need counseling because of your 'cidal arts.
After I thought I was over my cat's frequent visits 
to my kites, in exclusive club-housings, 
away with leave of branches jiggling, 
giggling in the trees.
Sick! 

Hateful Dance of uncalled for things!

Resurfacing

Raised Iron works
thrust out of the blacktop.
Women-hole covers
appear; the tip of the spear
above new drilled silos.

Rubber slugs concrete.
Debora steers her way
through a slalom of
gender specific movements.

The road bucks under
her taught belly,
while fingers push
a wheel through
a video game maze.

Long laboring feminists
under hard hats
are digging her,
so she just smiles -
tries to relax.

Wizened

Recognizing life's fields need steady crop rotation
Each of their grains harvested requires separatization
Safely stored in silos of compartmentalization
Red lights flash consistently on the horizon
Emptiness found in the words comprising
Tomorrow is another day or so, I'm surmising
Perhaps one morning, I'll wake up more wizened

The Image

There are images
that seem too much,
billowing out 
with menace to envelope
our meager scale
and overwhelm.

Take those
of an age born
in a blinding ball 
of heat, a city laid waste 
beneath a fiery sun,
the seared skin
and featureless faces
of people wandering
aimlessly through the frames 
of a black and white film.
And two generations on,
more lethal offspring 
of that age are still
incubating in silos
waiting to be born.

The image has escaped 
into the absurd, immensity,
born in the confines
of the human brain, 
has been let loose,
rolling down a hill
like an ever growing ball
chased by children.

Mixed Ancient Metaphors

The words taste like music
from worlds long ago
Each letter resavored
in harmonies old 

Coming to harvest
their sweetness imbues
A cave for an orchard
in wall painted hues

Old symbols retilling
those questions inside
Reborn when discovered
then never to hide

The silos refilling 
new birthrights to seed
Replanted within us
—a symphony freed

(The New Room: January, 2023)

A Lonely Town

Workers in the rice fields,
Labourers on agrarian land,
They move in rows and columns,
They work assiduously until they are spent,
Until twilight wears its garment over the region.

It's the golden season, 
The season that precedes the dry,
It’s a season when the land yields bountifully,
The land births a teeming population,
Nature has smiled over the fields.

They gather their harvest in silos and local shelters,
There’s enough for the home and market,
Then comes the annual festival,
They sing songs in their indigenous dialect,
They come out in colourful attire, 
They extol Nature for his kind and merciful acts.

The town is a shadow of itself,
It sits in forlorn hope,
A lonely wind sweeps through its streets,
The fields have become a haven for birds and unseen creatures,
Land dispute, encroachment and trampled rights, 
These threesomes have stripped the land of its beauty,
They have pushed the town down the cliff.



November 8, 2022.
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 22 Poetry Contest,
Mark Toney.

The Metaphysical Level

Can we all communicate and connect on a higher metaphysical level?
Is it possible to agree on existing evils influencing and escalating fear from entities of the devil?
Could we listen more intently with our hearts, not just our ears?
If only we would abolish all weapons of war, eradicate secret silos and eliminate all fears.

Could we try to understand the concerns, sorrows, and joys of our neighbor?
Could we communicate and converse on a higher plane without relying on the rifle or the saber?
Ignore the straight jacket earth-bound concepts of being superior to others, but rather have discernment and empathy for all forms in all realms and dimensions.
The day is near when all over the world, all that roam the plains, oceans, and the sky are unified in spirit with no fears, no apprehensions, or dissensions.

68 Years Ago

68 years ago

68 years ago, I was onboard the world's oldest tank ship
wooden decks and looking like a sailing ship more than 
a tanker in the Black Sea on the way to Odesa. 
The sea had ice flakes, fishing vessels got stuck, and a Russian
minesweeper was on its way to help it was painted dark
blue and red; the sky was slightly overcast.
What I remember best was the silence, no TV. no noise
from constant communication in the cold air, above all 
no mobile phones had yet to intrude.
Now, ships loaded with grain follow a mine-free lane
on the way to the Dardanelles for inspection by men
in uniform before heading for Africa.
Not destined for the famished population, not yet 
the grain is stored in gigantic silos by trying governments
distributed by them at an inflated price, the poor 
cannot afford the starvation continues unabated.
We have been here before, in the winter of 1949, people 
froze to death when fishing and fell like nine pins when 
spring came; few families had any furniture left.
68 years ago, I recall the unmoving stillness, now
there is a cacophony of angry voices protesting against
the burden they are asked to carry for our leaders.

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