Long Sloughs Poems

Saturday, September 23, 2023  

Coincides with first day of fall
and Autumnal equinox for said year,
where colorful splash kindled like tinder.

After I riff flecked about thee August
Autumn Equinox 2023,
this seasonal polymath teached you 
fall Equinox...

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The remnants of August 2024 Hurricane Debbie

Like a humane huntress, she
(the anthropomorphized storm)
brought a spate of cool Autumn like
temperatures and gentle soothing rain
here within my neck of the woods
for the last couple of days.

No matter...

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Autumnal equinox 2022 - 
Thursday, September 22
in Northern Hemisphere 9:03 PM
Eastern Daylight Time

Empyrean découpage citadel
betokens (bespeaks) autumnal arrival
nine oh three post meridian
chariot of fire emblazons telltale signature,
one humble human doth 
bid summer and his squandered...

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Autumnal equinox 2020 - Tuesday, September 22
(at 9:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time)

Empyrean découpage citadel
betokens (bespeaks) autumnal arrival
nine thirty one ante meridian
chariot of fire emblazons telltale signature,
one humble human doth 
bid summer and his squandered life...

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Tell me of your peace. 
Let it tell your story now
Of trials and tribulations, a tale not of dreams
Weary from a journey of self-discovery
My child, know the comfort in your peace
You feel hope in this...

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The issue's not yet signed and sealed.
Three cogent answers hold the field,
and no-one knows which is the best.
I'll set them out before you, lest
the question go a-begging.
        ...

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He was a common-place stranger,
Occupying the corner table every night,
And every day, alone but never lonely,
In a tropical beach bar, with thatched roof and no walls.

He sat facing the ocean, with a beer in his...

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It was a long lonely night at the lumber mill
Just listening to a whippoorwill 
In the dark beside a logging road.
I’ve got fifteen cars of timber on my load.
The yard stinks of bleeding sap and...

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A hazelnut breeze awakens us
To another day in the show no one signed up for
From an accidental scream
Or selfish architects of love

Rained out
Silver skies that block the sun
Do others cry when the shine reappears
To break...

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It is not a fall,
A python sloughs its old skin and wears new look;
It is never a fall,
A snail finds splinter in its shell and changes its house;
Not a fall,
Wing-locust sheds its wing and becomes...

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Why are the sea gulls shopping here,
if not for "White Stag, No Boundaries" or 
"Faded Glory?" Is there some other story? 
Coffee, tea, or you, or just practicing beach 
and gray-sky calls over concrete, carts
and...

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Should I, mere a rabbit of sand, shiny hair,
sport a shock of fur mired in clay,
they from gofer mounds, propped on to peer, would sound warning
through the sun glades and sleep grotto shades.

“A pall fellow...

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Why are the sea gulls shopping here, if not
for "White Stag, "No Boundaries." or "Faded Glory?"
Is there some other story?  Coffee, Tea or You,
or just practicing beach and gray-sky calls
over concrete, carts, and Handicapped...

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In the misty morning amid the elm and maple trees 
The whiteness delicately floats above the ponds waterline
The night hunters abandon their night search for food
As the early morning rays peek through the woodland.

The morning...

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To cross him was ill advised;
No bigger a man on this earth ever lived.
Storyteller, hunter, fisherman and farmer,
known to all simply as Parmer.

His days were early, his nights late.
A poor farmer’s life his lonely fate.
Cows...

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to dream, to lie, in sweet repose
and drink the thoughts of those who rose
from dark eternal slumber bleak,
to steal the voice of those who speak

see as i lie awake at night,
my effervescent dreams alight
upon a...

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“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, Scene I

I weep by a stardust shore where the seraphs sing
Tangerine...

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I met an old veteran the other day.
How old he was I really couldn't say,
But I could tell by his shuffling gait,
That, alas, he was nearing Saint Peter's gate.

In the park with him I wanted...

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Behold the beast, wandering in astral night
From dark caverns he emerges by starlight
to quaff nectar from his ambrosia chalice.
A leering creature with evil eyes of malice.

What nefarious thoughts does he ponder
as muscles ripple in his...

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*Inspired by Cheryl Hoffman’s “The Skin We’re In”  — Go read it!

On a turkey it's called a wattle
on a moose, "the bell," (not “the bottle”)
Those batlike things?
(too small - see wings)
dewlaps*, odd appendages we...

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No No No it says
a little momento of a soul
with which I imagine I identify
 
I can see her there
crouched in the stall
armed with her key
scratching deep without restraint
blowing away the cloud
of the chalky wall
which...

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Sorceress, with smile you beckon,
Promised pleasures dark, fulfilling.
Costs, I know, too high to reckon,
Quivering flesh is weak but willing.

Neck to toe in Spanish leather,
Sweet and sultry curves to cover.
“Your soul is lost to me forever”
Softly...

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The wind, careless in its airy freedom,
Feverishly furrows the prairie grass.
With a cry like a lost spirit, it winds
And wails through leafless trees and toothless fence
To vent its eager force upon the boards
Of a lonely,...

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The day has cooled,
 into a recliner
muddied.
Rinse it off...replenish...repeat
mud sloughs off into somebody else's drain.
That's ok  because I'm clean again.
  
Recycling this mud of the mind
into porcelain, attic spiders
entwined.

Scrap and scrimp.
Grow fat again
swing...

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A snaking mouth sloughs two spines,
the rattle of small vertebrae
and delicate teeth.

A woman learns to ride them, feels
the trombone slide of a dragon’s tail.

A man lifts tugging fingers,
not wanting to fumble
as ill-illuminated aluminum rails
bite.

The zipper...

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