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[Jan. 19th, 2008|08:08 pm] |
SEMESTER 1: ENGLISH EXAM
ON PHENOTYPES: A TALE FROM CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA
Early that year, 1997, in the foothills of the Allegheny Range
Lazarus Mellon’s crop yielded scarce, which was strange.
Years before produced an abundance of corn,
There was nothing to blame this shortage on, not even a storm.
Mellon’s entire income was based off his corn’s sale.
That year, 1997, he’d have only enough for stamps to mail.
He sold what he could, four and a half bushels, and made enough
To pay off his loan for 1995’s dredging of the slough.
Lazarus couldn’t pay the electric, or even purchase seed.
His last resort was to live elsewhere; from debt he’d be freed.
Only, though, until the next season,
For to live elsewhere without the farm, there was no reason.
He packed up his sole pair of Carhartt pants,
And headed south to live with his aunts.
Alice and May Mellon lived together in Milton, Pennsylvania,
To most natives, this was the modern-day Transylvania.
Lazarus’s aunts welcomed him in when he appeared that day,
“I thank you for this, Aunt Alice and Aunt May.”
His aunts would give him allowance to tend to their garden.
Living like this was humbling, but degradation he could pardon,
As he had nobody else, not a sibling, mother, or wife.
Most townsmen claimed Lazarus Mellon was married to his scythe.
Once every couple of weeks, he’d make his way up to the farm,
To cultivate, plow, check the pH level, as negligence can do harm.
Lazarus was preparing his seventeen acres for September’s sowing,
He would do something different, what, he sensed without exactly knowing.
Weeks passed while Alice’s suppers fed into May giving him chores,
Aunt Alice would bake casseroles based off of recipes by Knorr’s.
Summer nights were spent sitting in the swing on the wraparound porch.
The moon beat down almost as hard as the sun, not unlike a torch.
One night found Lazarus reading a catalog beneath a kerosene glow,
Promoting seeds of a genetically modified organism, commonly a G.M.O.
One tabloid in this Luxus Agri-Genetics Pennsylvanian Catalogue;
By a republican, a farmer, and quite possibly an ideologue;
Promoted it as desirable, extremely yielding, and hardier than most,
“Such a great-tasting corn will make the rest taste like burned toast.”
At fifty-seven cents for a twenty pound bag,
Lazarus was sold. What a bargain! A steal! A grab!
He borrowed from May and Alice as much as he could get,
Vowing to exist forever in their debt.
An empire soon emerged in the foothills of the Allegheny Range,
A surplus proved the tabloid’s claim, so myriad a yield, so strange.
Mellon’s pre-war telephone rang off its prongs,
Farmers’ Markets from all over Pennsylvania were calling in throngs.
A bushel here, a bushel there, sold Lazarus into gear.
He soon had enough for a 1770NT Planter from John Deere.
A night before the ‘03 harvest happened a thing impossible to choreograph.
As post-war blues wavered out of the phonograph,
L. Mellon heard a clatter erupt from the plot.
He followed its continuation to the original spot.
There before his eyes, the stalk grew exponentially,
He knew this supernatural act was for him confidentially.
From the husks, fangs began to materialize,
Before Lazarus, the corn’s consciousness began to imperialize.
Hissed the stalk, “He who sows the G.M.O. summons the Dark Prince,
And you shall forever suffer. Your bones are something I will mince.”
Roots erupted from the soil as Lazarus quivered in fear.
The stalk constricted his body, took him under the soil, and began to shear
At his flesh, as the phonograph wailed through the field of moonlight-flood.
The surrounding stalks capitalized off Lazarus Mellon’s blood.
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If any of the lines create two, know that the rhyming words mark the end of a line. (This can't be fixed). Anthony, memories of you seemingly necessitate my repression of them, so I forgot the logistics you taught me of the G.M.O. Sorry.
To the three of you: Brittany, Katie, Anthony. I plan to revive my earthen hobby of simplistic gardening. I couldn't keep up with it over the summer because nobody would support me. SO. If I begin this, keep on me like a parent would with homework. Tell me what you'd like me to germinate, and as long as it is required to sow in the spring, I will grow you three friends a each a tremendous plant or flower that will never terminate. Without us exchaning incentives that're perennial, I will dream from a pipe on a basis that's annual. Tell me whatever it is, and I'll buy it. Tulips, Canterbury bells, sunflowers, hollyhocks (extremely recommended!), cosmos, blah blah blah. Or, if you'd like a surprise, get back at me with, "Surprise me." |
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