Indian Summer

      
        
       

          Clouds harrowed each day 
          as  the weeks rained down, 
          all summer contained by cold 

          to this turn of the year

a bonfire marks.

Ripe leaves die hard

when their gold is not yet dry.

I light the slow fire

          to burst their green veins.

The swans’ wide wing-beats

alert me and I hear the splash

of weight on water, your call gone.

My sly cat purrs,

her head a nudging wedge of need

beneath my elbow,

a rainbow on every hair

down her used, barred back

where the evening light has clung.

Shafts of a burnt sun

awaken the tones

of the Afghan rug you loved,

swell the haul of their warmth

as they brighten, then season

the full, mauled air.

 

Double

I signal compound, my leaves fingered,

splayed to the brown of Autumn’s droop

fumbling down to crowns

two inches under.

I am green till blooming, crimson cup

busted by feathering reds, gold heart

shambled as bees shuffle

beneath the rags.

I am perfume, faint on a drag of summer

down to the time of rains and greys

rilling along the gutter,

glitter slopped,

none of your blowsy drugging here.

I am core-fat by winter, rootlets twitching

for nitrates locked below

their usual stock.

I am green and splayed, locked and shambled,

core-fat and cup-busted, red and fumbled

where I am guttered and fingered,

where I twitch.

The First One

I’m sure all poets get extremely sick

of other poets’ struggles with their rhymes,

but let me learn. I’d like mine to be slick;

at present, they get punished for my crimes.

I‘ve looked at Spenser’s poems. He wrote well,

but mine? A joke! Where did he learn his craft?

I contemplated curtals - couldn’t spell

its name. And as for Petrarch! No! I laughed.

My writing’s jinxed. No thoughts, I’m in a fix.

Hmmm, do I write this poem, do I not?

Can’t stand it when my mind starts playing tricks

and ends up asking, “Is this all you’ve got?”

Today, my Muse is flaming mad at me.

This sonnet’s off, she hissed - and so is she.