Gnarly Wood Forest Poems

 

In the kingdom of fodder and dung

When a body could find shelter in a ditch

And straw was a luxury few could afford

The gnarled forest was a great place to

Escape the tyranny of men and their

Harsh enslavement of all mankind.

 

Today’s enslavement is more subtle. 

Across the road from the abandoned

Turkey farm, a gnarly wood forest

Guides lovers and poets alike through

The twisted vision of life’s fateful comedy,

Tongues in brooks and books in trees,

 

All speaking to me sadly, joyously sad,

Glad to be out of the way of grinding saws

And blundering bulldozer plows, the scar

Of progress making its way across America

To house the growing horde of humanity

In their fox run, dog-tired bedroom hills.

 

I imagined the trees to be safe with me

On the brink of everlasting as quivering pen

Caught every tiny crackle of leaf and

Lore a dithery dendrite could explore on

The subject of solitude, runaway nymphs

Kings and princes in search of simplicity.

 

A great soul is a simple thing, really, no

Needy list of demands, no plethora bag

Of handy remedies and cures, no altar of

Self stretched beyond reasonable length

And no grand estate in the shadow of the

Walled Castle where misery sits watch.

 

In the gnarly wood forest of the mind it is

Darksome, dire and willowy wild, a break

Of browsed briar branches scratching the

Words In the nip of the mid afternoon air,

Nature’s inspiration to a poet, a kings final

Sigh, or prince in a wood nymph’s embrace.
 

©Jimmy Warner, 2011