The Old Man Smiling
there was this old man
and i always remember him
tenant of the family for years
of the vast coconut land
we own
he was poor and lived in a very
small nipa hut
all house to him
no sala, no furnitures, just this
soil kitchen and dirty kettles and
unwashed tin cups and
and firewood and pail of water
from the nearby river
he got two sons and 3 daughters
all gone to the city
also becoming as domestic helpers
and he would bring a chicken from the farm
and a goat and some fruits
to grandpa and
grandpa would scold him for being too lazy
that the chicken was thin
and the goat was small
and the fruits were not ripe yet for harvest
and what i remember of the old man
was that no matter what verbal abuse or
(even physical abuse) that was accorded to him
he never answered or frowned or
complained
he had that smile always that i saw
and i always remember
always with a sad heart since then
even if i had already become a lawyer
and tried to defend the poor
peasants of our
little town
where the vast coconut farm has thrived
and still conquered
what little injustices still
left unsolved
he died years ago
and i could have died with him
if not
for the reason.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
Vic 9
AND THIS is what i can remember
about Papa,
we go to the farm
and harvest the lanzones fruits
and put them on big kaings
and bring them all
home
nothing is for sale
the family eats together
thanking the Lord for the bounty
then upon invitation
the neighbors come and eat the fruits with us
what God gives him
he also gives in return.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Me And Grandpa Together?
if grandpa were still alive
he could have scolded me to no end
why at this hour
(it is 11: 30 in the morning)
i have not yet done anything for my life
perhaps like chopping wood or pasturing the carabao
or bringing them in their mud hole and keeping them cool
under shady mango trees
or perhaps i could have been in the farm cutting those weeds
feeding the chickens,
and the pigs, and milking cows
and cleaning the pigsty
or climbing coconut trees and gathering all those nuts
and processing them to copra
all these farm dreams of his for me
he never knew what poetry is.
and if he soon discovers that i am into this craft
i know he will call me again some of my favorite names:
lazy-bone
useless ogre
animal
demon
a mouth to feed
another problem of society
rebel
fool
good-for-nothing
i nfidel
enemy of the church
devil
etcetera
but i might be wrong, grandpa loves me and his only wish is that
i must know how to make our farm the best in the village
the farm that produces the fattest cow
the heaviest pig,
the biggest coconut
the longest corn
i'm hardheaded, very hardheaded
if granpa were alive, i could have set a table for two,
for us, one glass of wine,
under the moon, under the garden
soft winds blowing our hair
in an atmosphere of camaraderie
nothing about sons and fathers or grandpas and grandsons
we'll talk perhaps about women, and poetry and
well, the last but not the least of course, our faith still in God.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Evening Coconut
The statue of liberty is breathing in the air
Atlantis is waiting down below.
Late at night, flashing lights are sighted in the air.
Its no secret, what everybody knows.
It really dont matter much, which way I go.
But remember to pull over in the storm.
Have you seen the evening coconut
Bobbing on the bay?
Standing on the waters edge of stone
Someone there besides you
To hear the words you say
To show you things your eyes have never known.
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
The statue of liberty is breathing in the air
While atlantis is waiting down below.
Late at night, flashing lights are sighted in the air.
Its no secret, what everybody knows.
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
Evening coconut, evening coconut
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Abuser
it does not matter if you're male or female
in the mind of a abuser
they will always prevail.
when you allow the abuse from the start
in you life, it becomes a part.
whether it's verbal or physical, it matters not
you let it start, and it won't stop.
the verbal can be more damaging than the physical
because it becomes daily.
like a sculptor chipping away at its mold
until it becomes the way that they want it to be.
and if you don't stop it
you will never be free.
they do it because of their own inadequacy.
which is something that their mind won't see.
how much abuse should you take
before it becomes much to late?
the verbal abuser will always put you to the ground
and expect you to not make a sound.
they will tell you that you was put here to serve.
and to make a move, you have no nerve.
that you must obey their every command
and that you are the scum of the land.
if you have no - or low self esteem
it is something which will be seen.
and when an abuser has you in their sight
no matter what you do, it won't be right.
STOP the abuse, before it's too late.
for this can not be your destined fate.
the verbal abuse will always start first
then from there, it will get worse.
YOU must walk away, so that they can see
a victim you will not be.
(abuse is like a broken tool, it could damage whatever is good)
poem by Louis Rams
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The Blue Jeans I Remember
the blue jeans i remember
after a very cold season
in that coconut farm
tight blue jeans
smelling my swelling
legs
and dirty with saline
taste
unwashed in the corner
of my room
i always see your
warm hands
sliding
inside them
damn blue jeans
spare my sanity!
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Day Old Shep Died
it's been thirty years,
that he's been gone,
the day he died, brought tears,
all day, i played his song.
for nine long years,
i loved him and he loved me,
the day he died, broght tears,
toward the end, he could barely see.
when he died, i was seventeen years,
my child hood died that day,
the day he died, brought tears,
during his youth, we were always at play.
him and i was, so close in years,
when i got shep he was five and i eight,
the day he died brought tears,
he always ate his meals, off our plate.
he died at eighty-four in human years,
he lived to a ripe old age,
the day he died brought tears,
for this poem, he set the stage.
i can't believe, its been so many years,
i think about him, all the time,
the day he died, brought tears,
but old shep, was all mind.
of all these many years,
no dog has taken the place of old shep,
the day he died, brought tears,
i'll always remember, that dog with pep
in memory of old shep 1946-1960 written june 21,1990
Remember When..
remember when i would cry
remember when you would just pass by
remember when you left
remember when i was blessed
remember when you left me
remember my whole family
remember your doughters and your sons
remember that they are not the only ones
remember all the trauma you caused
remember when our paths were crossed
remember when you wanted to say good bye
my world shattered because you were to me a nice mom.
i dont think you will remember this
because this might seem like nonsense.
poem by Jocelyn Padilla
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I Remember
(I Remember) when(I) was just 5 years old when my mom and dad told me story before they died yes(I Remember) (I Remember) how people tried to tell me that(I) would not(Remember) but(I Remember) tell me why(I Remember) tell me why(I Remember) but yes (I Remember) but do you (Remember) how (I) (Remember) BECAUSE I REMEMBER EVERYTHING
poem by Lavion Bell
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Do You Remember Any of It? I Do
i remember when i met you
i remember when i fell in love with you
i remember when you said 'i love you'
i remember when i said it back
i remember what we had planed
i remember how perfect we were
i remember the late phone calls
i remember the songs you sang me
i remember when everything turned up side down
i remember the endless nights of tears
i remember wishing things were back to the way they were
i remember how you hurt me
i remember feeling like i was nothing to you
i remember waiting to hear from you again
i remember your last words to me
i remember they were ' i dont know if i love you anymore'
i remember feeling like i just died
i remember thinking you died
i remember the pain
do you remember any of it? i do
poem by Alicia White
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My Grandpa Orange Garden
From my grandpa Orange Garden
You can saw green orange leaf
all over the place
it fruits had started ripening
He frequently late going home
My grandma hit “Kentongan ”)
For going home soonly
But my grandpa workinghard
Forgotten to eat and drink, and going home
When he going home he saw the roof falling down
And black cloud seen in the sky
Quickly my grandfather took the ladder
Up to the roof and care the roof
For bettering their room
The rain fall from the sky
My grandpa walking down from teh roof
sleppy, and never wake up again
my grandma cried till morning
forgotten the orange fruit harvest
she embrace her husband slept strectched on the ground
in the meeting room
where children and grandchildren are gathering
to day you couldn’t seen the green leaf orange
the fresh orange leave the smeel in my reminiscences
the garden leave high and dry
no grandpa touch down at
the leafs through,
it stalks to let dryness
dryness and to wither
the dush fly everywhere
the house and garden is empty
only ghosts dwell in that house
I still remember
I fomerly run there
Among the orange stem trees
Under the orange leaf shady
His Only one message:
Don’t pick those oranges before ripe
Jakarta,6/29/2005
poem by Prasetya Utama
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Chicken Every Sunday
Just because all my dresses are just cotton hand-me-downs
This family calls me the lower class
Cause we're only poor folks on the other side of town
They won't let him walk up my path
But my mama says don't worry when they say those things about ye
You remember you're just as good as him
Just because they got that big house settin' way upon the hill
Why you don't have to look up to them
We've got chicken every Sunday and the preacher comes around
And every Saturday morning daddy takes us all to town
And we'd go to the picture show or picnics on the ground
Oh that's the lower class and I'm glad that's what I am
[ guitar ]
Cause my mama don't belong to the ladies social set
My daddy can't afford the country club
His folks look down on me and they don't let us date
Cause they think that I'm not good enough
But my mama says forgive him honey he ain't worthy of
And in anything you're too good for him
Just because they've got money and a big fine house
Well we won't take no self off of them
We've got chicken every Sunday...
We've got chicken every Sunday...
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Am Only One Small Name In A Universe
I AM ONLY ONE SMALL NAME IN A UNIVERSE
I am only one small name in a universe,
Of billions of names-
I am only one small bodily being
Where there are billions of billions-
I am a beginning and an end,
As all living things-
A speck in vast spaces whose specks are uncountable-
No one or nothing need save me
No one or nothing need remember me
No one or nothing billions of years hence
Need smile because I was here.
I am so small I need never to have existed-
I am not even here now,
Whoever is writing this
Lost me a long time ago.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Adventure
My grandfather, Charlie
Began that family trait!
He had a moving company...
The first of its kind,
In a city that draped its hate!
They didn't say it openly,
But it was known to segregate.
And Charlie did the best he could,
To see his family didn't suffer and ate!
And the family grew to be much more than eight!
By the time I was eight my grandma and pop...
Had popped out eighteen!
My uncle Gay Hall and aunt Virginia,
Were the last to dropp on this scene!
And Charlie saw it well,
That grandma never worked...
She had raised Twenty-one of her own.
And it was always an adventure then,
To see who would love...and to see who love would hurt!
To watch mama and papa take care of their kin!
Nothing what I've done has ever been
That adventurous to be driven
To protect AND defend!
Not to us who didn't know
What we know now but not back then.
Not back in those days!
Nothing what I've done
Has been that adventurous on my plate!
I'm glad my grandpa gave me a little taste of my fate.
I guess my grandpa left me something,
I could easily neglect...no matter what the debate.
Easily if not injected with a bit adventure in my blood...
And 'gifts' he left me I will always respect!
And much appreciate!
Because of my grandpa,
Any adventure from a kindred center,
Growing with it and letting it create!
I've always wanted that next adventure....
One
To be the very best...and giving me the shakes!
Thinking of adventure as something to expect!
Wanting more each time its done.
Wanting it just like sex! I guess.
Nothing what I've done of late...
Has made me want adventure less!
Nothing I can remember in September.
Maybe
When it begins to become cool and shady!
And just 'maybe'...
I'll suspect and seize the adventure in October,
If it presents and these attached
Grandpa family tied 'adventurements'
Don't drive me crazy!
Sometimes we have to give time just to be lazy!
To rest and refresh!
Special thanks:
Diane Violet
For the closing line in this poem!
AND I've since 'added' onto 'that line'!
Thanks again, Dee...
~for 'refresh'~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Republic Day of India
Let's celebrate Republic Day
With pomp and splendour
With brothers and sisters
But never forget
To remember
Remember the Freedom struggle
Remember the sacrifices of soldiers
The great freedom fighters
Remember the sacrifices of leaders
The great sons of the soil
Who died for the country
Fighting together
To attain freedom
Let's pay homage from heart's bottom
To the great dedicated sons
Who laid their lives into flame
Without name and fame
For the mother land
Joining hand in hand
With fellow citizens
poem by Shashikant Nishant Sharma
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I Remember...
I remember that day all to well
I remember how you fell
I remember that hospital room to this day
I remember what you would say
I remember the hope in your eyes
I remember the last time I saw you alive
I remember my unknowing last words to you-I love you
I remember the day you died
I remember the tears I cried
I remember you always and forever
poem by Ashley Kenny
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Smokin' The Hive (feat. Clint Eastwood)
I was ten years old on my grandpa's farm when it happened
After all these years i can still hear grandpa laughin'
As he applied that barnyard remedy
He passed his wisdom down to me
You don't reach for the honey without smokin' the hive
I remember my first crush was on the preacher's daughter
We were smoochin' on the front porch swing that night when he caught her
We weren't expectin' him home until quarter past ten
When the good Lord taught me that lesson again
You don't reach for the honey without smokin' the hive
You don't point your pistol before you check each chamber
And you don't drink no you don't drink when you drive
It's just ordinary common sense to avoid that danger
You don't reach for the honey without smokin' the hive
She rolled into town with rodeo,she was a beauty
And that cowboy saw you wink at her,she was a cutie
The sound of jinglin' spurs caught me dead on a run
He was fit to be tied and you were under the gun
You don't reach for the honey without smokin' the hive
Chorus.
No,you don't reach for the honey without smokin' the hive
You're gonna get stung boy
song performed by by Randy Travis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Home Sweet Home
sunday on a home sweet home
from the city
to this little nipa hut
on top of a hill
that father built
where the guava trees are filled
with ripe fruits
where i climb and gather and taste
the sweetness of its pink flesh
where the carabaos rest
in the coolness of mudholes
where i take my ride on them
in the river nearby
on crystal clear waters
where some fish swim on shallow waters
inviting me to fish and catch them
for lunch of pearl white glutenous rice
and with banana leaves as plates
and some wild chicken's barbecued breast
and with my bare hands and
some childhood friends
we shall take this simple feast
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I remember one day I was at Grandpa's farm and I asked him about sex. He sort of smiled and said, 'Maybe instead of telling you what sex is, why don't we go out to the horse pasture and I'll show you.' So we did, and there on the ground were my parents having sex.
Jack Handey in Deep Thoughts
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grandpa Danie Brand [2]
After taking part
as a youngster of sixteen
in the second Anglo-Boer war
where he had to spend nights in the open veldt
fired so much on the British
that his hands were full of blisters
from the rifle
of which the barrel got white hot
he married Lenie Swanepoel in 1918,
was really in love with her
and from 1926 he farmed on the farm Welgemeen
near to Steekdoorns in the Vryburg district
where he himself build his own homestead
from Josef’s stone and put up fences
and turned the wild veldt
into a viable farm.
Grandpa Danie did not have time
to sit on the porch,
as it goes with farming,
work took his attention constantly
and before early morning light
he was already in the fields
or at the diary busy with the cows
but was held in high esteem by the labourers
although he was strict.
On a day grandpa Danie
visited another farmer
to buy Afrikaner cattle from him
and while they walked into the lounge
of the other farmer’s house
he lit his pipe
whereupon the other farmer said to him:
“Mister Brand, I do not allow anybody
to smoke in my house”
and it was a big embarrassment to him,
so much so that while he was riding home on his horse,
busy driving the cattle with his workers
he stopped at a big rock
that rose into the air
and knocked his pipe against it
causing it to break in two pieces
and it was also the last time
that grandpa Danie did smoke.
When he got appendicitis
and his appendix erupted
grandma Lenie took great care of him
nursing him back to health
but he continually got pain
when he ate maize
and his brother Frans
who lived in Johannesburg
convinced him
to have a appendectomy
whereupon dressed in his black coat
grandpa Danie left for the hospital in Vryburg
and at the hospital
grandpa Danie got inflammation
and died from the operation wound
that got septic,
in a time before antibiotics
was discovered.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Walk Down My Memory Lane
Remember...
The day we wed.
Remember...
How we snuggled in bed.
Remember...
Walking in the oceans' sand,
Remember...
I'm in a hostile land.
Remember...
The ring, you're first surprise.
Remember...
My happy, green eyes.
Remember...
How I used to smile.
Remember...
Its been a long trial.
Remember...
My devotion.
Remember...
All my emotion.
Remember...
Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Remember...
To be open and giving.
Remember...
Our old birch tree.
Remember...
Remember me!
Remember...
The hot tub bath.
Remember...
Walking on the forest path..
Remember...
Your wedding gown.
Remember...
The love we found.
Remember...
When the war has passed.
Remember...
Our love will forever last.
poem by Philip Lore
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