I'd relish pomes tart to be hanging
On sprigs that sprang from the ground.
My beauty garden is ill and saline,
The carrots turning brown.
I used lime as conditioner
In soil to help my plants,
But I applied ten times what is called for;
The farmers look askance.
At least the lime-laced land's pestless.
I beat it with a hoe.
I lamely ask why it looks like blight
On desiccation row.

Sin to swelter when it's so easy
To irrigate--don't need the Nile.
This is not the science of rockets--
Wet the maize a while.
"The Roma tomatoes are moaning!"
Preach vegans who believe they grieve.
"For shame! You are laying them to waste--please drench
Them for reprieve.
You must go get the ground wet
And then your plant abundance grows.
As dry as cinders is each of
These desiccation rows."

It's a moonscape; all's arid 'n'
The starlings are starting to cry.
Birdbath ain't even hazy
With dew; like my garden, mighty darn dry.
They're wishing they were capable
Like those humpbacks of Norcal fame,
Heavy bodies in nature's tub,
To get drenched without rain.
I'm bad seminally; it's distressing;
There is so much that I don't know:
Like starving gardens of agua ain't right,
Thus, desiccation row.

Now, oats really need, 'cause the wind blows
And because there is no shade,
Water soaked into the earth, way
Down to the roots, so they aren't frayed.
The death of fresh plants is quite tragic
When not caused by a pest
Whose profession is their ingestion;
At dinner, it's relentless.
Oh woe, the skies aren't fixed to drop
Nohow, rain below.
So no thyme is peeking up
On desiccation row.

Fine vines require that water should
Seep plentifully 'round each trunk.
Parched are all my vineyards, though
With friends I nonetheless get drunk.
Each grape looks so intractably wrinkled,
Like la chair* de Cher will get.
With shut-off irrigation pipes,
You will find no alfalfa wet.
Because I have grown no grain for gin
Nor for vodka no potato--
Baked like kiln-fired (electric) kaolin,
Each desiccation row.

Got a fifth, and from it swirls
A beverage into a cup.
I'll take it sec and straight 'cause
My water is used up.
How I curse, a vocal boozer
As I spy an entire herd of moles
Engaged in an interspecies spree
With a randy band of voles.
They all play amidst the thistles
So dried-up they blow
In a whirlwind motion with the dust
On desiccation row.

Upon my feet, the nails are hurtin'
'cause in the keratin-skin crease,
Although I'm clad in clodhoppers,
The dry dirt conspires with the yeast.
I wish I had sweet casabas,
But my melon crop is deferred.
I killed it with pure self-negligence,
And boysenberries are deterred.
And my favas are routed; mere spindly curls
Supplant the pods that used to show.
¡Ay, carramba! There is almost nuthin' that's growing
In desiccation row.

I might be 'cause I stopped payment
To the sluicer-pumping crew
That won't send drought to anyone
Who coughs up when it's due.
They will not abide refractory
Types who won't part with their green.
They give 'em the cold shoulder,
And from water they're weaned.
The soil, if drowned, don't crackle
As you kick it with your toe.
Desert-like earth my clodhoppers are scraping
On desiccation row.

Ate me a hero at noon;
A titanic log it spawned.
I couldn't flush it down in
A waterless john.
Just etch in pounds of BS--smelly sh*t--
Nightly to have crap-tinged bowers,
But you can't call sprinklers onto them;
Dry fissures send no flowers.
I'll have to winnow all my seeds
From earth; woe, no-grow rows!
It's no wonder it shrinks to the touch,
This desiccation rose.

I don't believe when weather jesters say
(In their faux argot of plain folk)
That the skies will soon be spewing
A cloudburst that will soak.
Weather gals and weathermen shun:
That has always been my game.
They predict rain in places
That the next day go up in flame.
This time, the forecast was good,
So I call out to Noah, "Yo"'s!
God done sent a maelstrom flood.
Inundation rose.


*flesh