Related quotes: The colony of ants who...

Ants in the pants

The colony of ants who (which?)
were happy up until recently
eating away at the gatepost
have braved it up the path to
the doorstep where
the four a.m. milkman deposits
the milk and bottled juice; it must have been
an exciting discovery, the bottles all dewy, cool,
in the early mist of dawn and
a promising ring of sweet liquid
just below the aluminium caps of some

so as I pick up the bottles, bleary-eyed,
some bold mountaineers
hitch a hike to foreign lands
which they regret. The first one such
finished up on the steel sink-top –
a pathetic sight out of Kafka or Orwell,
the worker out of work scurrying
more and more hysterically,
up and down in search of company, of work,
disorientated, frantic; I brushed him,
her, or it, onto the floor in the vague belief
that ants and floors had more in common and
could sort it out between them.

The second put a cap on schoolboy jokes,
making its presence known just as
I lowered my pants upon the toilet seat…
black trousers at that – I was as frantic
in my antics, as that first ant on the draining-board.
Perhaps some kind of retribution.

The third turned up on my arm, as I sat like this
at the computer..this time I was in care-for-all-things mood
and hoped to tray it on a piece of paper
back to its team – it wasn’t having any,
skedaddled, almost jumped I’ll swear,
off to this foreign floor that is not ever antland..

Maybe it was the same one which just now
turned up on my arm again here, three times
resisting brushing off until I, ungraciously, succeeded. And then
I felt guilty, repentant,

An old man on creaky knees,
searching in the poorest light
on a dark gray carpet
for a small, reddish-brown ant.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes

My sacred ant

The milk bottles were resting amidst geraniums
on the doorstep this morning,
to be picked up with half-open eyes

but then, put down in the alien land
of steel sink’s draining board,
two ants caught in their morning explorations
who had inadvertently hitched a ride, jumped off;
and now, bade fair to steal my heart;

two chaps who lived to work,
they presented the soul of agitation –
backwards and forwards on the steel sink they scurried,
seeking orientation, seeking to continue their allotted work
in an alien land where the sun
had spun a cartwheel in the sky

how to return such swift and now so agile movers
to their colony which lurks around the wooden gatepost
as if around some benevolent totem,
giving itself to its devotees, to be eaten totally away?

I took a sheet of A4 paper, trapped the one
against the steel; the other refused to join its fellow;
both evidently suspicious of my kind.

I started back to the front door with my precious cargo
which was becoming more precious by the second;
but in its agitation, it dropped off, to find
some path to life’s purpose on the floor;

I with some indefinable sin
to expiate on behalf of mankind
which cares more for large things than for small

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Worker Ants

Parallel along the path I followed an ant track.
I joined the ants, there were many all carrying
bits of straw so I picked up a piece of dry straw,
and man was it heavy. The other ants laughed
said will get the hang of it in time, soon you’ll
be able to carry two. Maybe four too, I rashly
said. No, that will break your back.

I kept falling behind as I timidly scanned the air
for predatory sparrows and wondered if rabbits
eat ants. Where their track ends by a hole, their
home, I threw my burden to the ground and
jumped back on to my own path. Hard work kills
the soul, and all you get at the end of it is cheap
pocket watch.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Of Ants and Life

…guess me correct
of ants and life they connect
causing a traffic jam on their trails I cannot forget
of ants as they swam from tree barks to get
a source of existence cannot let
the ants in drought to starve
for food is what they have once collected
and stored;
that which none has never rejected
nor objected
of ants and life

the futuristic species
that know when to pick up the pieces
of anything,
and the guard ants making sure nothing misses
from whence it were piled and stored
of ants and life ‘am never bored
as I observed how they nod
in respect and honor on board
as they pass each other a hustle they accord

of ants and life as they seek to conform
to a life in all its form

if ants can manage their own
why can’t we not of our own?

poem by Onalethuso Petruss Ntema
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Gratitude dawning

Alarm clock. The sun rises.
The buses, railways, flights are running.
There’s a bottle of milk on the doorstep.

Facts of life. Except when they’re not there.
Who lives a life of continual gratitude for life?
Hey guys, the sun which disappeared last night
has turned up again today! Wow! Relief! Let’s get down
on our knees, raise hands, voices… and
while we’re about it, put your hands together for
all morning milkmen, where they still deliver milk…

Except – no milk this morning.
Shall you telephone – politely,
with a subtext of unpractised gratitude?

I only saw the current milkman once;
said to him, this is the first time I met you…
he said, well, you’re not around at 4 ay em are you?

So you telephone. A foreignish voice from
the land of holy cows replies from
a script I guess, …your previous milkman…
left the company… late…on his way…

Morning gratitude. The cow who gives you
the love for her calves, in liquid form;
yielding too, the butter for your toast;
the pig who gave her life for your bacon rasher;
the hen who parted with her offspring for you
to kill its life in sizzling frying pan…
they’re all female, you’ve just noticed; how about
the oranges whose liquid praise of the morning sun you drink?
tomatoes, mushrooms, anybody?

maybe you should write a note to the dairy,
say, please convey to the milkman
who has now left the company for
pastures new, hur hur, and we hope
a creamy, frothing future,
our gratitude for services rendered
which we would not ourselves
be easily persuaded to take on…
yes, maybe you should.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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