ENGAGEMENT FARM
© 2026 John F. Sendelbach — All Rights Reserved
Engagement used to be a pledge,
A ring, a word, a vow,
Two gears meshing tooth to tooth,
Both sides committed now.
Now it's any twitch or flinch,
A thumb that slipped and stayed—
They count the reflex as a promise,
And they cash the pledge we made.
A farm was once a fixed rent,
Firma, paid for the right,
Tax farmers squeezed the village dry
And kept whatever they could bite.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
REAPING WHAT YOU FEEL!
Rage is the cash crop,
Outrage is the meal.
I won't be your sharecrop,
I won't be your field.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
I'M GROWING SOMETHING REAL!
Welcome to the engagement farm,
Pull up a chair and scroll,
Comment your favorite color,
Only three percent can solve,
Share it if you love your mother,
Watch the Shrimp Jesus evolve,
Wooden carvings, log cabins,
A soldier and a cake,
Rows of phones in a click farm
Liking every fake.
The feed's a rented acre,
They own the dirt, I till,
A digital sharecropper
Paying my share of the bill.
Monoculture of attention,
One crop across the land,
Anger grows the fastest,
Pays the best on demand.
Troll farms plant the fury,
Hate-shares water every row,
They mine the topsoil of our patience
Till there's nothing left to grow.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
REAPING WHAT YOU FEEL!
Rage is the cash crop,
Outrage is the meal.
I won't be your sharecrop,
I won't be your field.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
I'M GROWING SOMETHING REAL!
And here I am out in the field,
Same as you, I need the reach,
But a farm and a garden differ
In the seed you plant in each.
Plant the bait and harvest reflex,
Or plant something worth your time—
Native ground don't need the sugar,
And the people still come by.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
REAPING WHAT YOU FEEL!
Rage is the cash crop,
Outrage is the meal.
I won't be your sharecrop,
I won't be your field.
ENGAGEMENT FARMING!
I'M GROWING SOMETHING REAL!
Engage the gears, engage the heart,
Make a pledge that's real.
Don't buy the farm, don't sell the farm,
Grow something you can feel.
Leave the engagement farm behind,
I'm a gardener, not a farmer—
I'm a gardener, not your crop,
Plant it slow and let it root,
Let the harvest stop.
I'm a gardener, not your crop,
I'm a gardener, not your crop,
I'm a gardener—
not your crop.