Cicadas drone their sun-drunk, tireless hymn
as July swelters, gold and overfull.
the driveway steams, the plastic buckets brim,
and heat, like dye, won't sit still or stay dull.
We cinch the cotton tight in twisted rings,
as if a knot could hold the blazing tide.
but sweat and color are unruly things:
both spread, both stain, both won't be denied.
Cerulean and crimson breach their line,
seep into one another, slow, unplanned,
and thicken into a hue with no design,
no name the rubber bands prepared it for.
The soda ash unlatches what was sealed;
the color doesn't sit, it moves in deep,
past cotton's threshold, till it's not revealed
but lived in, permanent as things we keep.
So heat unstitches winter's careful fold,
loosens what was buttoned, cinched, and pressed,
and turns the plain, repeated days to gold
the way a fever turns a body's rest.
Unwind the bands. Let August find the proof:
a swirl no ruler's hand could have designed,
the driveway's stain, the sun-bleached, faded roof
of summer, fixed now in the changed mind.
Summer heat swelters.
The first cool dip in the pool
brings lovely surcease.
When summer sizzles energy fizzles
you can fry an egg on the sidewalk
New York city cooks like a griddle
it's too hot to make small talk
there's a place I know where you can find me
it don't cost a dime come on up and join me
when midday swelters pavement's melting
yellow taxi cabs gasp for breath
it's so hot my brain feels like popping
even my shadow starts to sweat
if the Jersey Shore's not your scene
can't take the crowds come on up and join me
got my sounds got my shades
got my cooler got it made
I could use a little help with my suntan lotion
so tell me who needs an ocean
up on Tar Beach overlooking city streets
Tar Beach leave your cares below
if you want to beat the heat
Tar Beach NYC is where we you an' me
Tar Beach is where we can go
Summer smashes into Spring with violent heat that leaves the air in a hazy daze. All of the tender, green rain-draped brilliance of young foliage giving way to the drab, sunbaked drowsy green that swelters and gasps for rain all through Earth's yearly simmering. Boiling and drying in invisible and malicious rays, all green tends to brown and lush tends to shrivelled. And so shall oppressive the weight of this season be. Yet, Autumn comes.
Why brought they flowers to a witch's grave
With greening foliage and color bursts,
With drab, dark pigments that white lilies save?
Nail tight the coffin, Lest we all be cursed.
Atop the new grave, the bouquet was laid.
By morn the flowers have withered to black.
Wafting of chants on wind's organ is played,
While gale of rebirth is calling her back.
The scent of perfume has become hot steam
Where heat of the day swelters the foul ground.
Escape impossible! So it would seem.
Yet casket's empty and witch is unfound.
The old wood framed home stood stark and abandoned, a
shell of herself, where now new homes were standing..
Rotted roped windows wept with the rains and rattled and
trembled with each passing train..
The once solid foundation now unmoored by silt causing the
aged house to lean, a precarious tilt..
Yet inside her ancient bones still chiseled and grand with her
high molded ceilings and oak floor plans.
For over a hundred years she was home, haven, shelter, thru
cold winter storms and hot summer swelters.
Many years had passed and her families moved on.
She stands out of place where she once so belonged.
Saffron sunbeam swelters and sway.
Vividly scattering its burgeoning brightness.
Aurora is splendid, the dawning on our day
Awarding us admiration, now till darkness.
Magical orchid exudes a calm garden.
Autumn-loving meadow bird warden.
Roses of sorrow willow petals fall to Earth.
Shadowy blackbird spirit seeking worth.
Butterflies are haunted by their essence
Destiny, svelte and elusive existence.
I asked her name, as she sang "Amazing Grace".
She labeled this somehow "Serendipity Grace."
"Ah, well, it sounds very zealous and mellifluous.
Please, beautiful angel, keep playing audacious.
Written: October 24, 2022
Fall Of Autumn
The deep south, confused summer, autumn's blight,
Nature's microwave is on overdrive,
Dog day noons, sultry dusk undress the night,
Escapist schemes, routes north relief, connive.
Red Indian drumbeats as Fall swelters,
Mirage, sweaty heads host an oasis,
Sane in A/C cars, dash in cool shelters,
Heat holds life, pause Winters' death, the basis.
Latter is solace, fire sparks energy,
Pains of the past, remedies in their youth,
Melts the built, curls their hair, sums synergy,
Drab purple dawn the horizon, cold truth.
Gasps of frost taunt the raw vexing season's,
Soft made tough, green ripens, Fall sets reasons.
2019 October 05
*3rd Place*
Autumn sonnet
~~John Hamilton
If I sigh I will bleed
And if I bleed something will cry
I would rather it swelters in the undying heat,
ice in the brazen freeze,
and stay the stolen relief
but not cry.
I would rather it cease...
The pungence of heartbreak swelters
in the tangled dreadlocks of love-lies-bleeding
Take me somewhere exotic
to breathe not the foul aroma
of disappointment and despair
Show me fields laced with frangipani and orchids
in colors sweet and light as daydreams
Find me seafoam fields poppied
with pomegranate and honey
opium of jasmine lilting on a leeward drowse
delicious sift of sand drifting
warm and soft between my toes
as coral breezes court flamingo scapes
with pina colada suns
and I drift in and out of hibiscus euphoria
Let a mist of cockatoos flutter
in lapis skies puffed with fat feather clouds
parrots and toucans preening
like a rainbow shimmer
Tingle my pineapple senses
through the afterglow of mango afternoons
Create visions of paradise
in the cerulean of hyacinth
and never bring me back
Lets start a fire for all the world to see
The flames so bright they break the night and glisten gleefully
Lets start a fire to Break the chains and molds
The heat so great it melts the forms eliminates the cold
Lets start a fire that sets our souls ablaze
A fire that burns brighter than the sun and burns throughout the days
Lets start a fire so huge it reaches deep inside
The corners of the earth glowing there is nowhere left to hide
Lets start a fire that sparks forward the truth
The flames so great it swelters forward the new fountain of youth
Lets Start a fire for me and you to share
Iv'e got the lighter who will join me lets burn away despair
We lie together, you there,
me here.
I reach for you and you, melting into your pillow,
pull away
turning slowly, your message
is clear,
there is nothing, just emotional disarray.
Under the darkening sky I whisper
to you,
the words but an echo in the fading
light.
I listen to the clock tick, our lives
askew.
The dysphonic sound echos our plight.
The more I love you, the less
you care.
My passion swelters, my anger
flares,
but with melting indifference, you just
lie there
as the hole in my heart continually tears.
Your love a landscape of stark
indifference
as time melts slow into
the night.
Me, I'm lost, somewhere out in the
distance,
and you, just out of frame, hide in plain sight,
...as time melts slow into the fading light.
05/07/16
Based on Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory"
The pines turn brown,
and the needles fall,
the scrub jays are nesting,
to their loved ones they call.
The crisp morning air,
the heat of the day,
the rustling leaves are deafening,
the trees bend and sway.
The grass is quite cold,
the shade is my shelter,
the squirrels are gathering,
as the afternoon swelters.
The horizon turns pink,
it pleases the eye,
the sunset is bleeding,
into the evening sky.
The stars start to show,
the moon shines bright,
the crickets are chirping,
the woods are filled with light.
The birds quiet down,
and it starts to get cold,
and deep inside, the trees chuckle,
for their stories go untold.
The city swelters
mercury nearing 100 degrees
The crowds are really feeling the hear
Steam rises from the street
As workers with shovels dig out the asphalt
Urban hear is something you remember
The sexy outfits of the young women in the city
Makes life bearable
The endless spectacle that is our metropolis
leads us to believe once again
Urban Heat
We walk feeling the rays from
the sun on our heads
The air is thick
As the day wears on
stars appear in the night sky over the city
The air cools
At twilight you decide
how best to survive summer in the metropolis
Stars appear in formations in the sky
Tomorrow is a long way off
Children here have the life-span of flies
But leave no Where flies squat a trail of sickness
Breeds in the sharing of their space
The same agony of shame on each face
Death is loud here and we are silent who witness
The garbage truck did not come yesterday
The sun swelters the unburried cat
The tarmac sizzles in the sheen of fat
And the smell refuses to follow dreams away
No one is bigger than washing the scum away
But the pipes drip like saline into the veins
And hands soaked with more than tobacco stains
Fidget in the pockets that have fretted away
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