The Weekend Gardener

You mock the flowers I can raise:
A grown man should find better ways
To sow his seed and harvest praise.

Mutual funds look good, and hiking,
Plumbing repairs, and mountain biking--
Hobbies manly and much more striking.

Adam gardened. Cain, who killed.
Onan bore seed, although it spilled.
John Ball revolted. First he tilled.

Let me manure. I fork. I spread.
Like harlotry, in white and red,
I raise commotion from a bed

For private pleasure, amply paid.
In shadow, color: sun and shade
Where Cain worked hard and Abel played.

Goin' Up The Country

Pish and Tosh rode into Broomfield, scents

Of Liberty and saddle sores, denied

Their basic rights of rye and brewskis, all

Because the goldleaf fell at others’ feet.

Not yet, they said, a floozy by each wrist

Of every taste in radical descent

Down from the mountain streams with rills so bare,

None ferried fruit. I say, no seams for me,

Said each, blaming the other, and the girls

Sang country blues before they had been born.