It felt like Autumn
on this morning’s run
I want it to be fall
with its syllabus of vibes
I’m signaling a stance
I’m autumn’s undoubted champion
wearing my choice like gangland colours
- I could give my all to fall -
summer only ever had my subdivided attention
Summer’s just too needy: it demands relaxation,
bare legs, sun block, beach plans, hydration,
barbecue, and relentless fun, with scant variations
I want the visual promise of leaves falling
the flattering autumnal colour palette
my whole devotion crowns shortening days
fall always serves as a competent stylist
complete with venti pumpkin lattes
and mornings with a costume of frost
Unbind the theatrical heats of midsummer nights
and let the season's advance revive us
show us falls slanting golden afternoon light
let crisper darknesses harbour counterfeit witches
and lengthening dusks warrant winter wishes
Let fall assume her russet throne
and give us autumn’s cool agenda
without the influenza
.
.
Songs for this:
Ping Pong by Dimie Cat
Messy by Lola Young
Can you smell the autumn breeze
Wood burning fireplaces creating
Puffs of clouds unlike gray sky
Where blue birds sing with wings fly
Can you feel the autumn breeze
As it whips up above majestic tall trees
Inspiring the dance of colorful leaves
That poets recite like artists painting
Can you see the autumn breeze
On a crisp fall day as it’s raining
How strong it is a pattern slanting
We run for home out of breath panting
Can you taste the autumn breeze
Like a red candy apple delicacy
Or warm cocoa hot tea or coffee
Pumpkin spice treats we all eat
Can you hear the autumn breeze
It’s howls like a wolf as if calling
Ushering out the summer heat
Welcoming winds cooler refreshing
Don’t be dismayed at something that goes on forever.
It never happened in the first place —
only a slanting aspect of the constantly reconfigured patterns
nature loves to play on an uncertain sky.
Christopher M. Swan 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are the ones who settle
when no one is watching~
golden motes in slanting light,
the quiet archivists of attics.
We remember fingerprints
on forgotten glass, the sigh
of pages foxing and turning to amber.
We know how heavy stillness is~
how it clings to clocks stopped
at the same wrong hour.
We drift across rooms
like unfinished sentences,
marking the steady collapse
of monuments into memory.
No matter how clean your hands,
you cannot erase us forever.
We are patient.
We are waiting.
You will join us,
sooner
or later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sleet falls~
Needles of ice
slanting through bitter gusts.
Thermometers gasp, plummeting.
blizzard.
Rows of houses, leaves in gutters
Slanting shadows half obscuring
Borrowed light from a dying sun
Home of ghosts, papery facade
Twitches inhabit foreground air
Visible to the keen observer
More bits of nothing to disregard.
As if you could.
Assembled on a vacuum base
With faith connecting the floating visions
Which are called life.
Pray, life!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The spine cracked like parched soil,
pages swollen at the edges
with spills – cinnamon, grease,
splatters of tomato sauce.
Her handwriting, a slanting vine
across lined paper: add more salt,
stir till it feels right,
Grandma swore by lard.
Faded ink blooms where tears fell,
once, beside funeral cake.
The spine breaks open like a secret told,
pages swollen with stains – cinnamon ghosts,
thumbprints of butter, a splash of burgundy bold.
Her looping script, a faded charcoal host,
maps forgotten Mondays, birthdays gone cold.
Pinch of patience, scribbled beside roast recipe~
an ingredient never bought or sold.
The binding frays where gravy pooled and dried,
a topographical map of meals that fed
more than just hunger. On the margins
her notes bloom: Add less salt; He likes this bread~
Double for grieving written between lines, implied,
the quiet alchemy where love was spread
thicker than jam on all the years inside.
Rain is drizzling in slanting form
And pelting my roof gently.
Outside, it’s cold and dark, the stars hiding
Behind blindfolded, piddling clouds.
Music flows through my brain.
My ears are full.
Every breath I take resides on pluvial melody,
Charging my pulses towards the mirth of
Eloquent stanzas.
God, how on earth can I thank you enough
For music?
slanting hue
sink every desire due ~
cackle at humans
Woodsmoke, Laughter, and Warmth
Sunlight slanting through pines,
the creak's cold whisper,
a child's echo of laughter.
Bare feet on smooth stones, slick with moss.
Ankle-deep in melted snow, a shiver on the skin.
The taste of distant winter, sharp and clean.
Splintered light on the water's surface,
a fleeting mirror of a girl's wonder.
Flickering flames,
a circle of warmth,
faces I know by heart.
The mountain's breath a memory.
Drying by the fire,
the scent of woodsmoke clinging to a wet t-shirt.
Laughter, a low hum of stories,
spun in the smoke that rises and disappears.
Hands held out to the heat,
the red glow on fingertips.
The day a perfect circle, beginning and ending here.
A final, deep breath before the chill returns.
Christmas is a long song sung in winter,
An epic poem written with white quill feather pen and
Gold ink, and on clouds of paper,
Beginning from a sneezing December to a
Dizzying twelfth-calendar month,
When snow drizzles gently into the souls of
Those who hearken to the tinkling sound of
The church bell which rings gently with the weight of
The slow-passing season.
I see whiteness in every song, with so much redness;
Regal and romantic; flagrantly friendly.
Oh, how pure!
Oh, how sweet!
Well, that’s Christmas.
It lights up the courage in us to think right and assume
Merriment in the warmness of some frozen hearts.
It’s the best time of the year.
I swear to this because I am a child of Christmas.
It’s a time of fog and dew and sleet that rebaptise us.
Let’s not forget the slanting rain whose liquid kisses us.
And white Christmas of snow-carpeted lands and seas.
There’s no other time or season like it.
So full of gentleness and love,
Christmas causes hearts to race s-l-o-w-l-y,
As the year races on to breast the tape of seasons.
By calm childhood's brook,
shafts of brash, slanting light
shone through a dewy mist.
From a stone, there I spied,
descending from a thread,
dawn's angel from the dark.
The sun on this September afternoon
is not quite what it might have been in June,
but hot enough. My barman’s chatting on,
while somewhere, some lopsided carillon
is clanging tunelessly. I’m in the square
of San Francesco in Arezzo, where
I’ve longed to be for years. Rome’s far behind
(in fact it’s hard to summon Rome to mind,
albeit I was there not long ago.)
Tranquillity! I almost feel as though
I’ve plunged in freezing water. And the sight
of fiesta flags, inflamed by evening light
can make the heart start pumping. It’s too late
(for me) to learn to free-associate,
but what feels right, is right. I’m in a groove,
and who can say if I will ever move
from this precise position? Favourite pen,
a fine coarse notebook and “remember when” …
can life improve on this? When things combine,
we feel we’ve touched the hem of The Divine:
perhaps I’m heading for a nuclear fall,
but sunlight slanting on that craggy wall
is just as good as (better than, perhaps)
a coffee in that place from “Google Maps”.
Until I found Palazzo Guillichini
Gregorio, life’s classic “in-betweeny”
was lost to me: but I, “traquer le lièvre”,
can get the story from the cause célèbre.
The sun, a brass gong,
a brassy, blazing command,
it wakes the world,
with a fiery, golden hand.
The air, a hesitant breath,
in a nascent, cool embrace,
now exhales,
warming with the sun's grace.
The earth, a jade canvas,
in emerald light, it lies,
dappled, vibrant,
shimmering under golden skies.
The trees, a verdant legion,
stand tall,
reaching for the sun's rays,
in an arboreal, vibrant thrall.
And then, a slow descent,
the sun, a tilted coin,
it's light, a slanting fire,
on a canvas, now stained with wine.
The earth, in ochre draped,
hushed, in golden afterglow,
embraces the waning sun,
as shadows lengthen, softly grow.
The wind, a sigh of cool air,
brushes the twilight sky,
with the day's farewell,
as night's curtain begins to lie.
And on the tongue, the lingering taste,
of sunlit warmth,
a fading, sun-kissed sigh,
a promise of dawn, in the heart of the night.
When night calls moaning winds to come
‘midst chilling currents from the Sound
Hart Island’s hidden souls rest from
life’s heartaches known above the ground.
Come hear the raven’s haunting cries
as slanting shadows overtake
to grip forgotten graves that lie
in scattered fields’ neglected state.
An ancient tarnished bell is rung
by nothing save the wailing winds
its clanging haunts, it’s notes are flung
like pleading cries to cover sins.
Forbidden shores where tombstones lie
a hallowed ground ‘neath stormy skies.
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