Category Archives: autumn

Lament (a Cento)

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Our one forever,

when it stole through the red gates of sunset
left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass
is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song you might have been.

No longer mired in waiting to begin.

They tell us the night means nothing,
and the candles their light the light.

Nothing is hid that once was clear,

then gone and then to come:
all the time, except the split
second, except—

What is there to say except to lament.

You live in the wrong place.

There’s no flowering time to come.

The hands fell off my watch in the night

and you counted the time
from this instant.

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This Cento contains lines from the following poets: 

Kenneth Rexroth, John Koethe, Lola Ridge, Brenda Hillman, Martha Collins,  Melissa Kwasny, Katharine Tynan, Esther Louise Ruble, David Yezzi, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Jonathan Galassi, Michael Goldman, Robert Francis, and Lucille Clifton.

 

Prima(l)

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From 2015…..

^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^

They wander, and yonder they go in the dark
with glow sticks, beyond
them the moonlight, and barks
the taffeta, heavy-set makeup and screams-
the night of the beggar, of horrors and dreams.

The rustle of paper, the rattle of chains-
Billy and Molly fight over the brains.
The princess and pirate, too shy to speak up
the conjuring words while Dad just drinks up.

A drop in the bucket-a thump in the night
the blood of the ghoulish departed from sight.
The clown with the paste face, the witch all in black
the ogres and goblins all stomp and attack.

The flapping of ravens, the quiet of stares
at once-a-year play acting- acute and with scares.
Then beating the pavement and swarming the lawns
the tidal rush crushes, and then they are gone.
All manner of monsters and bold super-kids
Just listen for drumbeats, like Gene Krupa did.

*************
Soundtrack prior to writing/reading this poem: Sing, Sing, Sing.

Landscaping

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In the gardens near my house
the plants and grass are overgrown.
The flowers died a month ago
and nothing has been done.

In the gardens there I spy
the wild and untamed branches grow
up and out from sturdy cover,
where there once was ordered rows.

In the gardens, where I go-
a silence overtook the stalk
of slow exact, the tidy stems
of leaf and bud -where once I walked.

In the gardens, seeming now
unkept and winked in disregard
the minute beauty still remains
I see the landscape,sowed and scarred.

To the gardens, I return
when seeking lines and clustered leaves
to fill my wanting mind with growth
for poems such as these.

Segues

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Heading south, I hurried the darkened morning
behind me, and enveloped the sky-
A blush and stretch with her first glance
at daybreak.
A single tree was further down,
gilded- alone among the green and the dead.
It shouted – Hear me! I am magnificent!
The golden leaves shuddered,
and the adjacent pines quivered
and the color cascaded, this moment crowned.
…
Heading north, I rushed to meet the evening
and embraced the waning sun, a yawn and caress
from her last breath of daylight.
In the darkness, shadows stood where trees remain
and I could not tell gold from red or dead from green.
There was no sound,
no opulent style or lonely smile
Only sky and passage into ground.

spirals

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I followed the twisting branch
of the hazel tree, from the end
contorting me through its bends and corkscrew
wrench. I noticed the blue sky
just beyond and lingered there
for just moments and lost my try.

I traced a tangled shoot
from its tip, well into the
mangled form, and noticed a single
leaf – waiting- and watched
it live, forgetting how I traveled
there and where I was destined.

I chased the crooked lines
that overlapped and twined,
becoming one in the matted vines
where sky and sun are dim
and all is mangled and confined.
My words were caught in creviced splines.

I let the torsions lead me in
and angled, changing me instead
remained on a path of helix.
With new braids and spirals wed,
the path led somewhere new ahead
among the hazel twists and treks.

Preparations

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When I prepare the yard for winter,
the time when all is stark and lost,
the dead have wilted, scruff and ragged –
and I remove the chaff and croft.

As I gird the garden, whether
further growth is wont or not,
bedded mounds of soil and leavings
cover greener, fledgling thoughts.

Seeded verse on sorted papers
things that sleep beneath decay
seedlings of the spring and morrow
beauty fit for flow’red cliche’

Here I leave the hopes of summer
warm enchantments, an enclave
hidden from the weather – bitter
though purposed to save.

Passage

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October leaves me in thatches,
between the warm beaches
and pale wintered branches.

I remember the autumn,
the slow scale of mornings-
the decorative fallen.

I see her in color,
the amber-crisp sunlight
that touches to cover.

For moments, I tarry-
enveloped and yielding
to her fay and fairy.

I reach for her hand
and she vanishes,
my visions are damned

in the moment between
burgeoning summer
and winter’s pale serene.

the last

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As it happens, I get lost in the sky
where sunsets stroll away.

A peaking light around a corner
beyond the frontier of yesterday

I look to the last remains
even when the shadows begin
and wrapped from behind in covers
I gaze toward a fading din.

I dream of passion reds
that trail to orange, bleed to pink.
Turning around in silent awe
to indigo in a wink.

And there the fire ignites upon
this early autumn eve,
a lover of the colored sky
embraced without reprieve.

awaken

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Sometimes,
I want to fall apart-

spontaneously disassemble
and disconnect into hundreds
of small fragments,
interlocking of course-
like puzzles of autumn afternoons
just out of the box.

The ones with rushing streams
that leave the edge of the frame
to some unseen bend.

The leaves are gilded and bronzed,
ready to separate
upon the first overnight rain.

And water droplets cling
to porch eaves, just at the crest
when tension breaks.

And we embrace
with a lingered kiss,
and we are knitted to keep from
unraveling.

A song of origins

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When the leaves are swept away at night
and the chill cleaves to me,

I am reminded that I am descended
from those who worked the land.

tilled soil – tossed stone
to harvest, afford a life of

growing and yearning, splitting
and churning a song of origins

as a lantern tilted
sheds light on enclosed spaces

of circumstance. Places where poems
are seen, but not written.

Tuneful sounds once heard in the labors
of daylight, lulled by passing clouds

and mute when night comes on. Dirt is rinsed
from beneath fingernails and sleep arrives early

with a crisp quilt. Night whispers
it’s own beginning and the wind tosses aside
that which grips me.