SEASON

The October night sank like an old masculine sun
under the leafy new season it did dissolve into dust

while a wrinkled up woman in a tattered wool shawl
wrote love letters, mailed one by one into the shrill wind

and as the ancient birch porch creaked in the dark
she cleared her thin throat for the last time,

stood high on the warped boards in the thick
Autumn cold where her twin girls had stored
sugary treats decades ago.

She raised her bony tired red hands and as
strong as the full moon shining bright and so
long down onto Blue Pond

spoke her true simple words which
in the end were her heart's mind.

I guess you could say before her
brown eyes closed for good she

had dined slow and chewed well
at this lush feast of life

which to my open, half broken ears
did say it all.

LILTING

tight was the twist of the tin screw on maple
light was the tilt of the dappled sun’s shaft

green were the trees above grass stained knees all afield
brave was the lilt of their slow traipse towards the grave

tuneful is the soul moan of bagpipes' meander a'mourning
deep blue is the heart bruised of my tearful young son

wabena

Fat Wabena bought the stereo quick on credit
or so it seemed by her wry quarter smile as boxes
of gizmos were lifted by pimpled teens onto carts
and pushed out through dense rain to her half
rusted auto,

when the kids left, she set it down in an oily puddle
where cigarette butts floated like dead submarines
next to her bottle of discount gin in the gray parking lot.

She let the pigeons and gulls and water have their way
with her purchase as it drowned in the dim light,

and took a long swig of the juice, fire inflamed her throat
like a shopping spree gone utterly mad and her dimples,
they crimsoned, opened and fluttered like wings of
angelic desire as the booze, thank god, did its job.

Her sad head began to bob in the downpour as,
numb now, she sobbed and coherently muttered
of old music and long gone absentee gods.

CRESTFALLEN CAVITY OF DEPRAVITY

The Croatian oracle quacked and screamed above the shattered cracked plate glass screens,
her predictive capacities stunk like crap or two week old canapes from
congested Cairo's alleys way out back,

considering her barbaric charisma and such lack of tact, I ask you in complete confidence --
what's worse than that?

That's right, an empty tube of Crest in Dubrovnik with unclean acres of dental plaque.

CROONER

the lanky black clad stranger sang scat like a sainted jazzman or a traveling angel,

his somber vibrating lips create oceans of bliss for eager quiet listeners all over this planet,

as stars in the great night gleam radiant light across ages of time his

uplifting music graces astonished others with a sensuous trinity of scents:

an eternal Springtime blooms in wild loving profusion of rose, saffron and lime.

ODE TO THE CURRENT

carried away I was, and am
by the river turning tightly
just downstream from the red
rusted bridge with steel trusses,

oh how the steam rises like smoke
from wood fires in the yellow glare
of noon’s torrid lusty sun

and far below on this cool thin back
of blue liquid silk float ducks and geese,
acres of forgotten garbage and stink

mixed with the half-lived dreams of
blinking old men who stare into the past,
stifle their regrets as it forward flows
slowly away

across fields and foothills where lanky
aspens of gold dance such a delicate
and bold quiver and sway.

Sunday, Early (for Jevan)

mist coats the streets of our town

sweetens and softens this easy
slow morning

pleases like a sweater of finest
cashmere or burnished cane of
Cuban sugar.