ALL RESPONSES |
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When Carolina Corn Labs
offered up a complete
hands-on kit for teaching
kids genetics using corn
I quickly bought two
and called my boys for
dinner. |
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Houses breathe;
people sweat
Along about 9:30pm,
a train whistle blows
for the only intersection;
it roars into town
from infinite gold
cornfields; will leave
town into infinite gold
cornfields
The train has eighty-eight
cars; will reach South
Dakota by morning
A sixteen year old girl,
face pressed to her upstairs
bedroom screen, listens intently,
hands rest between her legs
her tired father snoozes
in his reclining LazyBoy;
mother folds white socks
in the kitchen; she thinks
it may be time to go
to confession this Sunday
In another eight minutes,
the train will be on the other
side of their world
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grain fallen on fertile earth
breaks through wall
opens eyes to light
begins rush of breath
moves lips to speak
tongue needs salt
throat craves water
mind wants mind |
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Golden Corn. Of course a child
emerges from it, as seedlings emerge
from rows of earth, as corn issues
from husk, as flour’s pounded from kernel,
as food sends its sustenance through veins,
as the hand buries the kernel again in spring,
and the harvest comes in fall. An old, old story.
That is the cycle of Take, eat, this is my body,
my golden corn. Just so, you will live forever.
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| She catches me round my waist in mamaw's garden, only the tall August corn to hide us, lays me down, her close cropped nappy hair sparkling with sweat, my giggles echo down the holler. It's sin twice, I say as she reaches up my dress to feel my breasts, and she knows more than I do what tree they'll use if they spy her between my legs. Her papaw was lynched for much less--just looking at a white woman. She's doing more than looking, oh dear God. She pauses only to say, shush Betty, shush. |
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The corn princess wants
to come out from the kernels
and become a regular girl.
Else what prince will kiss her
and accept nothing more?
Anyone want to write the next verse to this? |
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“I kept having poem dreams.
You know, short dreams
not long stories.
Not many people
have poem dreams
but I do,”
she said,
her face blooming
through sun brushed kernels,
her golden hair
taken by wind.
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John Deere Tractor plants seeds in a field.
He could have soybeans, sorghum or corn,
But farmer Schmidt wants to see better yield.
So instead, he sits in the barn and reads porn,
Hoping he can incubate enough good seed
To give Mrs. Schmidt the extra hands they need.
It’s possible the children might leave the farm,
Because they don’t like working in shit.
So it’s a little too early to sound the alarm,
But they’d carry on the name of Schmidt.
As if there aren’t already enough in the state.
Even first cousins are starting to mate. |
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Bodies, clothed, only beholden objects
inaccurate masses
that blend into the concrete
a substance sedated amidst the grey cloud background
that requires bushel
after bushel to sustain
But the face is seen
and meaning emerges
from the form
of reconfigured corn |
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they won’t accept you over there
there where the war you fought so hard was staged
there will be no graves for you to be sewn in
there will be no reason for you to try and fight past the rage
of how you are unacceptable now
with your genes spliced raw to one another
they won’t accept you over there
they will not even see your family.
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She was only a face
to him. A corn-fed Midwestern
girl with too much on her hips,
and the wrong color skin.
He would have liked bronze—
she was pale pastel.
Her hair was all wrong; not thick and course
like burlap, but rose petal thin. Her family
didn’t swim in the right pool, but through
silos echoing sound of the simple life.
Grain-girl knew how to love him,
but farm girls aren’t easy. They’re complicated,
and unpredictable like harvest,
history is to no avail—there is no almanac.
Had she been more
burlesque, less brain— had she been, in fact,
radio-active stupid and leggy,
she’d have wrapped those utensils around him
until death.
She breaks clear her face
from dust and corn-ash to breath free
and to know— to see
from her small-town heart, how it will
someday look on the other side.
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I dream of words gathering
across these burnished nuts
that bathe me in golden surprise.
I dream the words mean something
form a poem that will stop a heart
with its beauty, create a smile
with its heaven, a way to say
I love you like no one else.
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i spent many
summers
on my grandparent’s
farm
i was there to help
but it was still
an unexplainable
freedom
i loved
the fragrance
of corn
oats
and old wood
in the grainery
where i collected
food for the chickens
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The syrup of our lives
lays in meal in crumb
in the number 9 or 6
does it matter the color of our colons
when our fingers are burnt orange? |
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farm girls dig the dirt
beneath their nails
slip in the shit that
they run through
wake by mothers hand
for a midnight calving
join 4-H and show
at county fairs
know to stay clear of
the mow when the wasps are fiery
love the smell of meadows
wet with early morning lust
drink beer and smoke cigs
like you and I
wish school was rained out
when the fields are dry
want to be wanted
by muscular calloused hands
know life beyond the planting
and harvesting of corn filling your belly |
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some nights
I have nothing to say
so i
open the night
sky of my mouth
and taste
sleep so deeply
that I awake
speaking
like
the color of plums
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I don't know why grandpa held corn in the barn,
grand pyramids of corn I would climb to the top.
You run open fingers through those dusty beads,
and you're a blasted rich man counting his gold. |
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The mellowing of summer, a fire,
burned hot now receding into submission
leaving the ambers to whisper and sparkle with gold.
Blue shadows bring Frescura
where heavy pearly drops of sweat
mark rivulets on the dark golden skin
causing short electric shivers as they slide by.
Golden light in the early morning
welcoming the sight of another day
or the ending of it,
melting into rich oranges
for our teeth to sink into,
and sprays of bittersweet juice.
Gold corn smothered in delicious butter,
a flower with bright yellow petals
tempting us to believe that
by destroying such a beautiful creation
with the last petal
we may find love.
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