Wouldn't it be something if a lawnmower had a voice of its own? Well, guess what: now it does. Not really so much, actually, but I imagined a few things a lawnmower might say if given the opportunity. Inso doing, I present to you The Linksland Legionnaire, and Parts Unknown: The Culinary Mower.
Note: no lawnmowers were consulted, fed, or harmed in making these poems.
The Linksland Legionnaire
Awake, I rise on misty morn’
To cast away the midnight scorn
Creaking, shifting
Cracking frost beneath my tired wheels
A pouring flash gives lion’s breath
Still, my work is of sheep, and goats, and rabbits
But they are gone now, away, to another field
I trundle
Out, and back, and back again
Forever the steed
A legionnaire, posted here
on rocky outcrop, linked to sea
With passers by doffing caps, congratulating me
Rider grunts, and swears, and toils with a scare
unbecoming for the maker of such beauty
He fears they will never sing his name, or mine
He knows I have none to sing—
just a shape moving across other shapes
So many souls are found here
And lost
We excavate from mortal bonds
The clippings and trimmings
Cast them back to be clippings and trimmings again
How to rest, when sleepless is our task?
It grows, and grows, and never stops growing
We are wired this way
To fight back—to create through that which we destroy
Rider says to me good night
I try and sing for him
Yet away, he drifts
Away, we drift
Parts Unknown: The Culinary Mower