There's an old farmer's tale called
"The Cheatgrass and the Scythe,"
where we give gratitude to
our pendulum hands
Every spring,
the cheatgrass creeps near
like a thief that steals,
crop quality and yield
All afternoon the farmer scythes,
green crooked wands
till they lean upon death
Acre after acre,
scything becomes
methodical
then again, so does grieving
Consider the farmer's heart,
palsied by grief
as the color of misery
animates in his cheeks
and in his eyes, going the way
of the oak,
where they found
his beloved,
hung by a garden hose.
Each dawn he mumbles
the old farmer's tale,
while his heart must carve
through each of its agonies
over and over, until it feels.
There are some excellent couplets - 'Consider the farmer's heart,
palsied by grief '
Then some not so good - 'as the colour of misery
animates in his cheeks' , may just be me but the colour of misery would not be in any way 'animating'.
One of those poems that reads like a piece of prose inexplicably split into short lines. And the absence of full stops is confusing. Punctuate it properly and write it out normally and it would at least be less irritating :-)
I'll take that as a complement. I'm just a regular Joe who's working on a new poem, but yes, I've been published before a handful of time. You people are interesting!!