“The Barn” published at Gobblers & Masticadores

On By Mike U.In Poetry

Hey, everyone. I’d like to announce my poem “The Barn” has been published at Gobblers & Masticadores. Thanks so much to Juan Re Crivello and Manuela Timofte and their staff for this opportunity to share my writing with their readers. I’m truly grateful, Juan and Manuela!

“The Barn”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

“On weed-strewn verge of fallow field
The barn still stands, a silent revenant
Of ages past, a mournful sentiment
Amid the dying elms concealed

Its boards the hue of ancient bones
The wind has long since scoured paint away
As season after season rendered gray
Once brilliant lively crimson tones…”

You can read the rest of my poem by clicking this link. Also, don’t forget to follow and subscribe to Gobblers & Masticadores, where you’ll find some wonderful writing and plenty of food for thought.

36 thoughts on ““The Barn” published at Gobblers & Masticadores”

    1. Thanks so much, Linda. I did a photo shoot job for a local barn museum in 1998 and almost all the old barns I photographed were extremely weathered, all the original paint scoured away by decades of sun, wind, rain, snow and neglect. Many of the boards did indeed look like old bones. I love strong imagery in poetry, so, despite the dark theme of this poem, I enjoyed writing it because of the imagery. 😊

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    1. Thanks so much, Peggy. Your kind and thoughtful appraisals are so important to me. I’m glad to know you enjoyed this one even though it’s incredibly bleak. It’s always a delight to have to stop by to say hello, my friend. 😊

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  10. Such a melancholy feel to this, Mike, but also so eloquently expressed. I’m sorry I’ve not been around much lately to read your lovely words. I’m in-between homes at the moment and so it’s complete chaos right now. Hope you’re doing well. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Michelle, and no worries. Moving can be such a stressful experiemce. My last move in late 2015 was so sudden and unexpected, and man, was it chaotic and expensive. No planning at all, just an urgent need to get away from my previous situation for my own safety. Here’s hoping your move goes smoothly and quickly for you, my friend. 😊

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    1. Kindest thanks, Saima. The barn photography project was fun. The museum in the little town I mentioned had been an old barn and it was newly renovated, so for the grand opening they hosted a traveling Smithsonian photo exhibit featuring barns across America. The local newspaper publisher asked me to photograph old barns in the county where the town was located, and my photos ran concurrently with the Smithsonian exhibit at the barn museum. I had a dozen or so photographs hanging on the walls of the museum (and as far as I know, they’re still there). Since the barns were property owned by others, I wasn’t allowed to use the barn photos for my own purposes, so I never had the slides or negatives scanned and can’t post them here, although I found some photos of the interior of the museum online where you can see some of my photographs (barely). If you look at images 1 and 5 in the website linked below, you can see several of my barn photos on the walls. They’re small and hard to see, but I recognize a few of them.

      Frontier Museum, Monticello, Utah (Mike’s barn pics on wall)

      Anyway, thanks as always for your warm and supportive comments, my friend. I appreciate you. I hope life is treating you generously. 😊

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      2. Life.. 🙂 Life treats us well, its the people who hurt.. become so strange at times that you cant even recognise them 🙂 Whats ur opinion about love and relations.. at times the intimate relations become so tough dear Mike.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. I’ve struggled with this all my life, Saima. All I’ve ever wanted—more than anything—was to find someone to love who would love me back and treat me with kindness. I never found that girl. I thought I’d come close a couple of times, but I was wrong. And I don’t know if I was the problem or the girls I loved were the problem. All I know is that it always seemed to end the same, with infidelity on the girl’s part and me getting dumped. And all the while I was the one putting in all the hard work in the relationships.

        There are givers and there are takers. The givers expend so much energy and time trying to be kind and loving and make the relationships work, and the takers just take it all, become bored and move on to someone else. And in some cases, before they move on, they make life absolutely miserable for the other person through mental or physical abuse (or both) or lying or cheating or just casual cruelty, like it’s a game. And I suppose, for them, it is a game, but for those who are hurt, it’s not a game.

        I think everyone is deserving of love and compassion and happiness. Call me a dreamer or an idealist, but that’s what I believe, and it gets me into trouble every time, it seems. So many of us yearn for closeness and affection and the feeling of safety in the arms of someone we love. It seems such a basic, simple desire to just find someone to love who loves us back, you know? And it’s so frustrating when it doesn’t happen, or when it does happen but then it turns bad and we get hurt. That’s a pain like no other, and bards and poets have written songs and poems about it for ages.

        As humans, I think we’re designed to desire love and companionship. It’s hard-wired within us. It also seems hard-wired in some people to exploit that and take advantage of those who have given their hearts to us. And if our hearts are broken enough times, they can’t be repaired, and we end up hollow and bitter and alone. True love is healing and joyful. Simple acts of affection can be rejuvenating. Without love, without affection, it’s hard to find a reason to carry on. Our hearts harden and we grow old and rue the day we were born.

        I could go on and on (I think about this stuff often, particularly when I’m in bed, trying to fall asleep, and the loneliness takes hold in the darkness and all the painful memories come flooding back). I’m a hopeless romantic who never found real love. It’s so strange… So, to answer your question of what is my opinion about love and relations, I would say it’s something I’ve yearned for all my life but never found, and there’s a big hole inside me that will never be filled because of it. Humans need love and affection, we need to be able to trust someone in that special way. I just think not everyone is going to find love, and that saddens me. I wish I had a better response, my friend. I know the pain of unrequited love, the sorrow of lost love, the stomach-churning realization of infideltiy and lies, and the bitter silence of loneliness. It’s my hope that others find true love even if I don’t.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment