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Best Poems Written by Tammy Swank

Below are the all-time best Tammy Swank poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Take Me With You

If you go downtown early morning
You can see the shopkeepers setting
Old treasures on the sidewalk,
Writing their welcomes with chalk
On little standing blackboards,
Inviting you inside their stores.

Honeysuckle Antiques has its window
Filled with newfound things to show,
Local crafts and the latest junk,
A fringed lampshade and leather trunks.
Its storefront arranged with trifle clutter,
Metal lawn chairs and wooden ladders.

A rusted garden rake’s crooked grin
Begs you to come shop within.
A copper cowbell rings above the door
As dust scurries across a creaking floor.
Greetings from a curvy dressmaker’s bodice,
Empty coke bottles sold by the case.

The moment you enter you’re lost in time.
You never know what you may find;
A stack of old suitcases eager to travel,
Tiny dishes all the way from China,
A basket full of skeleton keys
Or an old black Singer sewing machine.

So many things lost and forgotten;
A lady’s hat pin, hundreds of buttons
Peer through the green glass of Mason jars,
A boy’s prize collection of toy metal cars,
Polaroid cameras and a reel to reel,
A pair of broken red wagon wheels.

Everyone’s favorite, a brown Teddy bear,
A no-longer-needed baby high chair,
Piles of silver spoons, a tarnished pocket watch;
Its workings inside have ground to a halt.
Someone’s keepsake once shiny and new,
Time of death; twelve thirty-two.

Overhead, a beautiful lead chandelier
Sparkles “I don’t belong here.
Take me with you when you go.”
Shelves lined with items needing a home.
Cramped, dusty isles you wander around
Through all the lost and all the found.

Then persuasive orphans catch your eye;
A porcelain doll sitting way up high,
Sad, in her torn and faded dress
Next to some pink Depression glass.
“Take me with you when you go.”
Beg the doll and the bowl.

Details | Tammy Swank Poem

The Robin's Nest

While gathering wood one autumn day
To make a stack beside the stove,
I spied a nest along the way
Of back and forth and to and fro.

November’s wind had forced it down.
I took the time to pick it up,
This robin’s nest upon the ground,
Then held it gently with my glove.
	
I looked for answers up in the elm
To see from where it came dislodged.
I held the craft upon my hand,
And spun it round in wonderment.

To weave a cup from twigs so fine,
Stole bits of sage and lavender,
Small tufts of moss and battered twine,
Woolen yarn from an old sweater.

To darn a home with such keen eye
Must be a bird of graceful stock.
Her handiwork beneath the sky
Must earn her praises among the flock.

For holly berries pierced the spray
Of saw tooth grass and tangled weed.
A lofty home with leafy shade
Of downy-tucked and winding reed.

She worked o’er treetop and chimney
To gather many a splendid thing.
She sang a whimsical melody
Of peaceful groves and feathered wing.

Once bright blue eggs had filled this nest
Through starry nights, mid- summer’s storm.
All pressed beneath her scarlet breast;
She kept them safe from snare and thorn.

She raised her clutch on branches high
With fitful scorn and lessons shrill.
Then spread her wings to let them fly;
A prideful scarlet bosom swell.

Now autumn’s red has left the trees.
Cold winter’s breath is on the sill.
The rustling of a withered leaf
Holds no sweet song nor feather quill.

When spring returns on budding leaves
To grace this farm with robin’s wing
Thickets will flush with hearts afire
And geese will sift upon the mire.

The earth will thaw as days grow long.
Come May, again I’ll hear her song
And all kinds of fluttering about
While turning blossoms inside out.

The robin’s work will start again
With tufts of moss and battered twine,
For chance will find her way to me.
A nest, she’ll build amid my tree.

Details | Tammy Swank Poem

The Early Milking

A new day begins
As the day before.
The Jersey girls assemble themselves
Into their usual cow chain.
One girl’s head follows another’s tail.
Then head then tail,
All along the sodden trail.
This habit has worn a pasture lane
Of mud and muck, 
And cow to barn.
They plod the path with bulging udders
To give sweet milk made from clover.
Lo!  It is a ritual
Of back and forth,
To and fro!
The sodden lane is dark as coal.
A sleepy man
Readies himself with pail,
As the girls line up, 
First head then tail.
Lo, it is a ritual
Of muffled moos in grain filled troughs
With yellow corn on drooling mouths.
For each cow gets her morning treat
As warm steam rises from the teat.
Woe!  A life of barnyard chores!
By hand, he milks
With stool and pail.
Each pet waits her turn in line
By head then tail.
The sleepy bovine moan and snore.
The man, he leans 
Against one’s side
And rests his head in furry hide.
Such labor,
Grief, care and thought;
Sometimes he thinks to sell the lot.
Lo, barnyard smells invade his dreams
With buttermilk 
And warm, sweet cream.
Then big brown eyes meet his in friend.
Come evening, 
He will milk again.

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The River

The river remembers
When the first man came to drink,
And the ice cold April melt 
Of a heavy March snow
That fell a century ago.
It was a narrow, struggling stream
Searching for its way between the hills.
The old river knows everything.
It is full of suffering; toppling
And gnawing at the bedrock.
Its’ pummeled banks are punished
With uncountable raindrops 
Upon raindrops.
My oar trudges the haunted water.
The old river holds many things,
Dead branches, bones and shadows.
Silent creatures dwell in its’ dark swirls.
It holds the misplaced things,
Ray-Bans, fishing lures and flip-flops.
The river is afflicted as a woman’s heart;
Keeping its’ secrets in the deep
Cold basement of the underneath.
It holds many tears 
And wayward spirits that loom 
On sleepy layers of river mist.
My oar trudges the turbulent tears.
A rushing torment carries them away.
The old river flows on and on,
Pushing its’ burden toward the sea,
And still the river remains.

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Picking Blueberries

We’ve come from far away 
Like all the others.
A morning spent on lonesome dirt roads
Searching for the blueberry farm;
Endless acres of hazy blue groves.
The pickers trickle in.
We step out of our cars 
Into the dust with straw hats 
To block the blistering sun.
The owner sits on her porch
With stacks of clean buckets
And a chest of cold bottled water.
It is the hottest day of the year.
Dirt and sweat gather on our necks
As we hurry to the shady rows.
It is on sad occasion that we come 
To pick the wonderful berries,
Disturbing them from their thickets,
Taking them before their end is due.
The sweetest ones taunt us
Just out of arm’s reach.
We are no better than the canker 
And worms that kill.
The owner graciously snaps a photo 
To mark the day.
We huddle close in goofy grins,
Sun burnt with buckets teaming.

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Good Morning, America

It was a long lonely night at the lumber mill
Just listening to a whippoorwill 
In the dark beside a logging road.
I’ve got fifteen cars of timber on my load.
The yard stinks of bleeding sap and cut pine.
Roll on, roll on down the line.

I’ll be on my way before the dawn
Through the bottoms and the swamps.
Before first sun light on the timber lot,
Backwater sloughs and cypress knots.
On rusted rails I’ll be making time 
When the horizon winks a thin gold line.

I’ll be rumbling down this long steel track,
Somewhere between porch light and pitch black
While coyotes call out for the night.
My engines will be roaring around the bend
As the night bird’s song comes to an end.
Roll on, morning train, roll on.

Then day break will lay on morning dew,
As the logging town fades out of view.
 I’ll give my whistle a blow, blow
To make the farmer’s rooster crow.
By the time the sun has warmed me,
Old men will be drinking their coffee
As I roll through the station.

I ask you leave an open car
For misty eyed hobos and runaways.
Let them know the clotheslines, highways,
And countless telephone poles.
Sunshine and shadows clicking time
Beside the graveyards, grain silos, 
And other lonely places.

They’ll be greeted by multitudes of sparrows,
Smiling house wives in their bathrobes,
Unwashed cars and graffiti
Behind the back yards of society. 
They’ll find comfort in the rhythm of the day
Beside the dusty dirt roads and alleyways.
Roll on, big freight train, roll on.

Details | Tammy Swank Poem

November

A November wind has roared for days.
Dead garden stalks lay bent and frayed.
The proud maple now stands undressed
In drifts of yellow against the fence.

Broken remnants lay on the yard;
A scattered blast of limbs’ discard,
And yellow litter in blissful calm.
A roaring November wind is gone.

The crickets have hushed and gone to sleep.
All nestled beneath the barberry.
While snowbirds busy the hedges to feed 
Where ruffling winds misplaced their seeds.

Sadly, the walnut has nothing left to shed,
But an ivy still clings in brilliant red.
A rusted barn roof is left exposed
Where distant arbors used to grow.

And chimneys sew their grey, woolen clouds
For the bleak sky wears a sullied shroud.
The curls of smoke gracefully unwind.
As for me, a pensive knot inside.

To see the snowbird’s round, feathered breast, 
And to think.  Each year uncoils from the next.
Bright leaves that held such hope in June,
I’ve collected to make a sick perfume.

And piled these treasures in a heap;
Now smoldering and weeping in the heat.
I huddle closer to the crackling flame,
Knowing that winter will come again.

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Hay Gathering

A sliver of shade
On the east side of the barn
Was where he unfolded his chair.
The pink lemonade stung
In the cracks of his blistered lips.
A panting breath
Of wind came by.  Cooling the sweat
On the back of his neck.
He gazed off at the flaxen rolls
And dreamt all of them were stacked
In the boiling hot barn.
Quietly, he watched a hay devil
In its whimsical spinning,
As it went about
Its work under the sun.
Lazily circling the field,
Taunting the afternoon
For the remaining dew
And taking with it the last bit of moisture.
A tumble weed at his feet
Enjoyed the comfort of the shade with him.

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Dust

I need nothing 
But the red setting sun
And to rest easy in the palm of night
With the prairie’s cool arms around me.
I came in on dirty horse hooves 
And lonely cowboys’ hats,
Blown far away from the cities
Where houses and bridges rise up.
I say nothing.
Old wooden fences and barbed wire
Can’t keep me out,
A scarf tied in a knot at the chin,
For I am in the wind.
You will find me
On children’s feet in late summer.
The farmer’s wife sweeps me out,
But I creep under her door
And hide in her cupboards.
I am not afraid of the chimneys
With their blue billowing towers.
For I am a bucket of ash in winter.
You have seen me
Lingering over corn fields, tall and upright,
Sticking to tassels and ears.
In the evening hours I am the dusk.
The farmer stuffs his hogs until they waddle.
He hacks them with cleavers
And hangs them on hooks.
I say nothing.
I have been driven out by the axe
That claims the timber
And I bite at the plow.
I cling to the wolf’s throat, choking.
It is I who holds all things together.
I was there on dark days
Among the killings of young men.
I was the last survivor 
When wars were fought.
I say nothing.
The rain and the sun and the wheat
Have haggled it over.
The rainbow in the east pledges
And the Colorado River boasts;
They will wash me away.
I flourish where the old things go,
Covering the writings on head stones.
It is all mine eventually.

Details | Tammy Swank Poem

Breakfast Dishes

Every day we woke up hungry.
We ate our little bowls of freedom 
At the breakfast table.
Then Momma washed the breakfast dishes.

In the summer,
Momma grew maters and beets.
She stooped in earnest to keep us fed.
We sopped our shame with bread.
Yellow dishes lay in the sink.

We lived those years without thinking
About leaving the little white house.
The check came once a month.
We pinched our pennies carefully.

The house stood dressed in red shutters
On a street that no one cared about.
Time wore a yellow calm.
Momma’s dishes lay in the sink.

In the winter,
We huddled closer to the stove.
Steam grew on the windows,
Fried taters and a pot of beans.
Yellow dishes rattled in the sink.

On the back porch, thin cats waited
For a bite of something worth eating.
They cried at the screen door
While Momma washed the breakfast dishes.

At supper time,
We ate our plates of charity,
Fried bologna and government cheese
With a false sense of peace.
Every night we went to bed hungry.