Two Triolets In September

 

 

 

 

 

Two Triolets In September

 

Bright wasp-stings of light, yellow afternoons

that summer has given, October soon takes

with her quarrel of grackles and pale hunter's moon;

a wasp-sting of cold on a yellow afternoon.

Ferry winds will carry the gold leaf-wing soon.

Forgotten the spinner, the empty web breaks

with a wasp-sting sigh on a yellow afternoon.

What today has given, tomorrow soon takes.

 

 

So came the soft touch so soon to be lost

that folds poppies' faces to green nodding skulls,

sealing their seed-thoughts til the first killing frost,

in that last soft light so soon to be lost

where I dance alone with a fluttering ghost

with summer's warm vices consumed and annulled,

with scent of soft smoke so soon to be lost

and the red poppies' faces turned to green skulls.

September 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Word Garden Word List~Autumn

at

Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Oriental Poppies, 1928,  © Georgia O'Keefe

Poppies in seed, via internet. Fair Use

 

Beach With Absence of Yellow

 

 

 

 

 

Beach With Absence Of Yellow

 

 

 

 

Because

you were gone

the sun was a gin-soaked gypsy

in a yellow dress

going inevitably down

down where sticky darkness

wants to go, sliding from

the mouths

 

of ruined sailors

whose pleasures led them to the overflow,

drowned down gold-bright waves, row on row,

to wash up sorry scarecrows

on the shore, back-stabbed and 

broken to the empty land once more.

Because

everything is gone,

the morning sun is sober as a cat,

bored and batting at the palm-leaf's knees.

The sailor's flattened hat is

shredded on an unpersuaded breeze

that only wants to quit

 

and all along the boulevard

cigarette butts still roll,

the mirrors lie,

the telephones ring.

 

 

March 2023

 

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Word List: Randy Newman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Venus and the Sailor, 1935 ©Salvador Dali 

Vegetal Puppets, 1938 ©Remedios Varo