Fall was a tubercular cousin
residing in the country
sparse hair,
rasping cough.
2
Night air was damaging
stringing pumpkins
around orange chains, the
milkweed pod shivering
in open shirtsleeves
little noises sifting
from burrows in her chest.
3
Fall was...
reputedly from another country
wore glaring cravats,
gold leaf and Rubenesque chain;
stalked the lark
mocked the breeze.
4
Penny wise, pound poor
leaves
a shock of hair
prematurely white
degradingly picked from
the comb
flung out fireflies
crisp bodies to singe
fire-cold light.
5
Advancing stairs
in poor light,
the season became makeshift
wallpaper
hung by tedious hands.
Little seep of plaster dirt
escaping the touch,
grass bristled by frost
where occasional flower
was torched with cold
savaged bees
stumbled from the weeds.
[26]
METAPHOR
There is a star near
the hinge of planets,
a barn under
a cow's lick of moon--
plausible people
moving thru an
airless universe.
Pay attention to the frond of lilac
. . . limestone troughs upon which
thickets of Indian scalp &
devil's paintbrush soar
to the horizon
and, afterwards,
little creeks run
with the sparrows of evening time
in step to tiny boatmen
that echo enamelled snails
from the very consonants of earth.
Rustle of leaves,
some might argue
breathless gasps
to intone the savagery
of little seasonal voices
cut off
mid-stream.
A spate of bees,
early colonizers
deflower blossoms and
strip-mine lava butter of erupting
hard-shell tulips:
such careless penetrations--
volcanic intrusions entomb
their hairy bodies caked with
the iron-lung of blackened soot petals,
each a cough drop
on the heaving breath
of a declining afternoon.
[28]
EMBERS
As you enter into dream--
its the unconsciousness
which stifles,
the thin embers
called flame
that outdistance
the controlled rubric
of desire.
[29]