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

 

Red And Gold

 

 

 

 

 Red And Gold

I.

Under my feet bright bodies

of leaves, mast from the oak, crunch

of all the discards of summer, fire's coming

crackle; percussion accompaniment

to sweet smoke of raked heaps burning

where you stand smiling,

match in hand.

II.

Peridot green under amethyst clouds

the after-storm sun bent the grass back

with sudden heat, as you bent my bones

with one touch, onyx eyes

closing on summer's fire

while the last light left brushed the waterfall's

singing to red steam.

III.

Around my skin a white pelt of

frozen water, my remembering numbing as wind,

 howling hard as a cast-out wolf ten states

from its pack, too old to fight

too full not to cry,

 under a sharp sickle moon

that sees nothing at all.

IV.

Rolling wheels on warm red dirt

over the creek, around the bends where 

trees hide the climb, mask the descent,

 shaking their gravid buds in the rage of air

pushing me, pulling me,

past the point where words

could make me stop.

V.

Every season dies around me,

every leaf, every white-muzzled wolf

in my wilderness, each golden October

burning red under the match

til nothing is left but the journey

I reverse night

after night in my sleep.

October 2021

posted for Meet the Bar: Cadralor plus Nobel

at dVerse Poets

Images: Autumn Leaves, Lake George, NY, 1924 ©Georgia O'Keefe   Fair Use

Red Dirt Road After Spring Rain, author unknown, via internet.    Fair Use

 

The White House

 

 

 

 

The White House

 

 

Fall is sky

of milk and water, of

sand and blood, a field of ev'ry fruit

and folly, gathered around the slant white house that

rocked its boards like a boat and took in

the moon's footloose orphans.

The white house 

grew a child;

it seemed safe there by the

warm muddy lake,rough beach of red dirt,

trees bent over brown water by the weight of locusts'

spell chanting out the night, the old gods'

didgeridoo. There were

always dogs

 

in the yard,

toys on the floor, music

in the hall, food in the kitchen, bells

of laughter rung on blue sheets, your bright virgin eyes

umber as winter oak, wild as wine,

alight in the white house.

Now the child

 

is grown, you

are gone, and nothing is

safe. The white house, drifting in its trees

by the clouded lake, is a slow rocking boat un-

manned but full; October's hand turns wind

 to firelight for moon's

last orphan.

September 2021

 

 

posted for 

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: This poem is written in the triquain form, consisting  of seven line stanzas with lines of 3,6,9,12,9,6,and 3 syllables respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Old house, author unknown, via Sunday Muse  Fair Use

Autumn Day circa 1986,  © joyannjones