Countryside Dreamer Poem by Dave Tendell

A pleasing sizzling sound
As fresh spicy aromas hover from all around.
Lonely hens loitering in an empty nest;
While roosters boast their very best.

A swine is missing from his mud-spattered pin.
While the cow’s sagging utters are empted once again.
Sparkling apples are stripped from limbs of trees;
as lonesome pods are robbed of their inner peas.

The string beans are picked by a callused hand.
While spuds are snatched from Earth’s fertile land
A basket of tomatoes are ganged so vividly red;
while all the animals are watered then abundantly fed.

Ears of corn are a golden delight:
Like stolen loot, they are taken from the fields pending the blackest of the night.
Like a bear, you come in hungry prepared to eat.
After an enormous meal, you carefully drown your aching feet.

Sadly, this is the life I never had.
I was raised in the city; for me that was extremely bad.
I ingested whiskey and drugs instead of nourishing food;
hurting the innocent if caught in a terrible mood.

My childhood passed as I played my video games
Not long before I was educated on all the drug street names.
Then I joined a gang and refrained from school.
So I tried to make my way by selling drugs and hustling some pool.

It wasn’t long until like a vicious animal, I was locked in an iron cell.
I still remember the horrifying prisoners and the jail’s putrid smell.
After I was released for doing my time,
I regressed back to the life I knew; city crime.

Looking back, I wish I could have been raised on a farm.
Maybe I would have been sheltered from big city harm.
I always said: I would not live on a farm to be a slave.
But anything beats rotting in this dark secluded grave.