In people’s front yards
(That is, if they’re allowed),
They can have a display
Which will make them feel proud.
Some have flowers and banners
Or bushes and hedges
Or humorous statues
Lined up on the edges.
A spinner or whirligig
Might add some fun
Or a sculpture or wind sock
When not overdone.
Now, my personal taste
May be different from yours,
But some people have yards
No one ever ignores
For they’re filled with such tchotchkes
They make my head swim;
Yet although my opinion
Of this might be dim
To those owners, such plenty
Brings joy and such pride
It’s a wonder they ever
Come in from outside.
On rows of chairs
heads bark orders at invisible underlings,
sharp suited mid-level execs
power into conference calls.
The more gleaming the sky-palace
the skuzzier I feel,
the duller the yellow
of my crumpled paperback.
Air-miles accrued,
I bumped myself up to business class.
I should have worn a tie.
I imagine earlier times,
wind-swept form
standing beside a bare runway
trench coat flapping, fedora pulled low,
as I prepare to leave an aerodrome.
In a darkened faraway hanger,
beneath a solitary wind-sock,
a black wall-phone waits
for my natty,
even stylish arrival.
AUTUMN BIRDS
Heading home, toward the sun;
its long drawn-in breath of twilight,
sucking the last gasps of birds
toward its mouth,
I glimpse a flock of sparrows,
gathered up in squalls
to forage the last bruised fruits of summer,
and know winter is approaching.
Waves of starlings and ocean spray
sparrows,
splashing across the sky,
gust like the rib of a wind sock,
a white sheet falling
upon winged chairs,
saying time has come to head South.
Seeking comfort among circles,
when the weather turns
and daylight dwindles,
they gather at dusk,
With cropped wings, bank the air
then swoop down to roost
like the evening’s frost
condensing on the trees.
It is the ebb of Summer, its last glimmer;
The sweeping undertow of geese
carrying shells
disappear in the dusk
and are swallowed by the sun, like a river,
drowning every echo from our mouths.
John Tansey
Wind sock kites can be seen along the beach
Couldn’t afford one; always out of reach
Until that Wednesday
When one got away
“Please, Mom, let it be mine,” I did beseech
No other kids were in sight on the sand
I grabbed the string; the kite took off as planned
Seagull in the way
Tangled right away
Snarled in the jetty, I saw it crash land
*Entry for Gwendolen’s “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” contest
Dedicated to Alexa Brus who has helped me hone my writing abilities and gave me the encouragement to continue writing when my muse escaped.
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