T Wignesan Poet Free verse

Sun Setting Over the Dark Green Fringe of a Shivering Lake

Sun setting over the dark green fringe of a shivering lake on the last day of winter
An old man still unbent sits on a deserted wooden bench
   with the load of his cares on his convex-ed back
   beside him a plastic bag full of weekend wares sags
unable to straighten his cowed congested torso
  he blinks through mist hanging under barely-clothed branches
    hardly a soul trips over the jagged burnt-amber cobbled-bricks
fresh bursts of prickly sweat teem under collar   
                                                                          cramped armpits
   the unease of sticky underwear  stretches taut legs
      but the load will not set him free 
                                                  from the pincer lock and spanner hold
three score and the six year curse
           undermine the octogenarian           as if
a cast-iron sickle and chain hooked his mind to a runaway train
                                      he gasps and leans against the load
     his eyes smart  assailed by the column of simmering myriad mirror chips dancing on the lake swept by swishing cold blasts of reed-tossed gleam
                                                                                   over the never becalmed lake  
 transparent linden and birch stare cropped and cut-up
       naked and unashaméd
neither warblers nor crows crouch hushed in their lost fastnesses
    only the claret whistle-sharp tweets of a lonely but jolly Great tit
         cleave the air from sunrise all around the lake and skirting tenement-flats tree tops
          piercing clear over the crunch of tires stuttering hoots and growls of changing gears
                   while the Song thrush apes and parodies the forlorn complaint
   past children yelling during recess after painted gaudy face rubber balls spilling over gated kindergarten railings
                                                               for days now she or a he calls on every cluster of branch brush or bower breach
     dingk dingk/dingk dingk/dingk dingk  dingk dingk  dingk dingk  ding.../
wher've ya been
     dingk dingk   dingk dingk... 
have you/have you/have you seen my mate these days now/ have you/tell me now...
   the burnished listless eye of molten gold
over the sill of mauve ether waves
     floating on grey eminences of pencil-shade cloud banks
reflecting infinitesimal shiny scales all aquiver in the instant gaze
                  till the yellow yolk gold stains the melancholy mauve
looming larger than the eye
                        yet for some more moments
   as the grave grey grow  
        round as a robin flirt 
the demure circular twinkling of the garden warbler 
    tweeting for a partner
as the silver beam on the tired murky waters
                                                                          recedes
               even as it were there now     
                                                   now no more
the mauve turning ever so reluctantly
  till grey cloud formations recall
the silver-lining of a sunken undimmed molten globe
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017

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