The Straw-man’s Plea
Image found HERE
The Straw-man’s Plea
I am the straw-man
mourning silently
at the center of your corn field.
My arms are flimsy weaklings,
with aerials I knit my words
of flex
so you could hear my plea:
suture me, dear masters,
the vocal chords of crows
so I may preach the voodoo of the harvest gods.
Let me morph and fade
and become one with the shade
that looms and crafts the apple tombs for worms
across your crops.
Oh, let my eyes no more be
dry bassinets for buttons
of your ragged shirts,
let not my veins be muttered
by torn fabrics of your lady’s skirts,
recant me a voice
and let me hurt
and pray for rain.
Replace my effluvia, I beg you
with patchouli
and the caterpillars
will commemorate me in their whispers
instead of mock me
with the bite marks on the leaves
of apricot arboretums.
Pull down those forgotten, desolate
kite cloths
from your attic
and dress me a carnival,
may kingdoms small and large
shudder in suspense
of will my limbs
outstretch to feed
the wild horses
no one dared to tame.
Oh, let me be the beauty
of the Sun that shears
its gold
and enters clad
to bedrooms of our Mr. Moon.
Let me call the vegetable lords to bloom,
let me hold a feast;
let me rest upon this rhubarb meadow
as a traveler,
not a crucified, wallowing beast.
Oh masters, let me tell the world
that I’m not lonely.
Done for a Wordle prompt at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – a new prompt site by Yves! Join in on the writing fun and try your hardest not to get inspired (hint: you will fail ❤ )
Color me in Cyanide and Cherry 
Outstanding images, Oloriel.
Hard for me to narrow it down to one – but I do love, ‘…with aerials I knit my words of flex…’ Wow! xxx
Thank you, Alienora, I am very glad you liked the poem! I’d love to see you weave your way through one of our prompts!
Ooh, I’d love to! Just let me know and I’ll join in. xxx
Here is the prompt site, we will have a different prompt every day, so I am sure you will find something of interest :
http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/
Brilliant! Thank you! xxx
“not a crucified, wallowing beast.” There were so many fabulous lines but I want to carve this into my skin haha I love scarecrows, I mean I am pretty much obsessed about them so you had me at the picture and then you blew me away with your words
We share that obssesion! 😀 I absolutely adore them and adore writing about them, so it didn’t take me longer then a second to grab that Straw word and start crafting 😀
Here is my most favourite scarecrow poem, I adore it and think you might like it too:
http://999poems.blogspot.com/2009/03/980-what-scarecrow-said-vachel-lindsay.html
My God that is beautiful
Other poems of the same author are marvellous as well 😀
Wow talented poet! I have never been able to rhyme
I cannot manage to shake the damn rhyme off! 😀
So very visual. Fantastic job.
Thank you very much, Richard! 😀
It was very thoughtful. And inspiring to me too.. check out mine for the prompt. 🙂
Thank you! Your entry is sooo awesome! 😀
🙂
Fabulous Oloriel, such vivid imagery and you applied it so cleverly to a scarecrow, very clever indeed. Well done.
Thank you! I was shy to attempt the prompt, with you breaking the ice in such a skillfull way!
Oh thank you Oloriel you did very well, I enjoyed your poem. Michael.
This is what we all want. This piece is perfection – so full of pathos and glorious dreams at the same time.
Thank you very much, jenie, I am very happy you enjoyed reading! 😀
Thank you for liking my last post. It was a good reminder to come by and see what you’re up to. Thanks for the “Wordle” link, I think I’ll join.
Ps. Your poem is showing up in yellow text with a white background on my iPhone. I’ll read it later. How is your publication going?
Ouch, that sucks! I try to use bright colors such as yellow, because of a great contrast it gives with the gray background, so it is easier to read. I did not know the background of my blog on phones is white 😦
Going great, Issue 2 is out in a few days, I am very happy and excited 😀
That’s alright. I actually am at a bar writing but I just put the laptop away once I posted my last poem, so I’m just being lazy with the phone. I still regret not sending you an entry for the magazine. You should be happy 🙂 it must be amazing to see your stuff published, I’ve decided to publish once I have enough work, enough of hiding my writing 🙂
That’s the spirit!
We are always accepting submissions, in fact, the response has been so great, we practicaly have a full June issue allready 😀
Enjoy the bar, and do have a drink (or a sip) in my name, its my birthday in 38 minutes 😀
Yes I will in a min, happy bday 🙂 are you going out?
Thank you! 😀
Nope, just gonna be with my son, husband, best man and best friend(read:conjoined twin) in a home party consisting of my son not letting us listen to anything except Katatonia, while we keep the beer out of his reach 😀
LOL I love it! But really would you have it any differently? I would send you a pic of the beer, but can’t send pics on here. Have fun Oloriel and happy bday!!!
John
Nah, its the best way!:D
Thank you for your wishes, a lot! 😀
An exquisite word weave! I hope the masters hear the scarecrow’s plea — suture me, dear masters,
the vocal chords of crows
so I may preach the voodoo of the harvest gods — fabulous imagery
Thank you very much, I am so glad you enjoyed my entry 😀
I am incredibly touched that a poet of your talent read and liked some of my work. This poem is genuinely amazing – I am blown away! Just oozing awesome…
Thank you very much for the compliment, but I do feel very content for discovering your blog and writing and am looking forward to being a part of it! 🙂
So many amazing lines….can I say they are all my favorite??? The moment I read it was a scarecrow…I said PERFECT!
Thank you Anja, I am glad the piece could captivate you as a whole! 🙂
Amazing once again lovely – and patchouli…I used to wear that when I was younger – still love it. You have used the words exceptionally well as always, a talent to be reckoned with 🙂 x
Thank you! I adore patchouli myself,so I just had to include it somwhere! 😀
I tell you, I so wish I could write like you! My stuff comes out in silly sing-song children’s rhymes. (I’m a tad bit underdeveloped!) But I suppose there’s a place for that too. This is rich and beautifully done, O. I think it reaches the core of anyone who would read it, and I especially love the last line. xo
Thank you for those words! I often read the works of great and get a bit sad mine cannot even come close to it! It is knowing that it did touch the reader, in all the honesty that I wrote, what makes me always keep writing 🙂
Don’t remember last time I saw a straw-man…fu, now I`m sorry for poor scarecrow…
You should be, they are so sweet:D
Beautiful…in so many ways.
“may kingdoms small and large
shudder in suspense
of will my limbs
outstretch to feed
the wild horses
no one dared to tame.
Oh masters, let me tell the world
that I’m not lonely.”
The beast is coming out of rustling dresses that tear its flesh made of straw… But, this last verse has a totally different effect on me, like I am or I am going to shed unshed tears along with the crucified one..
I do not know why thoughts of Mary Shelly are falling on my mind. Awesome. This is the loneliest poem in the world, and I thought that’s the hardest thing to write about solitude, at the same time, to avoid pathos. The loneliness, especially, in poetry is a delicate matter.. Through thy pen, it seems so easy…. Very good idea.
Thank you very much for your comment, leila! For me, this poem was not about loneliness, or, to put it correctly, it was, but about accepting it, finding your way out of it by means you want to hold dear.
I was not precise. Of course that the poem is not generally about solitude, it would be too general and perhaps such generality would drag the theme toward pathos… . I was assuming, precisely, it is clear (to me) that the man of straw has accepted his loneliness with his last “statement” You’re welcome.