Horary of the Seasons
On the appointed day dawn rises
clear and golden, so warm as to deny
that winter could ever come:
like an horary of the seasons
or of my lives, the ritual begins.
I start to fold the clothes
washed to cotton stiffness,
the shirts and skirts I’ve worn for years,
like those blue eyes behind me
so faded now after all this time
and the wear of memory,
I shake them out, expose them to fresh air
for a moment, dust flies until I’m choking
on old scenes, those stains that can’t
be washed out cover long years of growth
and waiting, the result of packing them away
at the bottom of the pile,
not digging them out until today.
He returned with hardly a ripple,
threw himself onto my summer shorts
full of sweat and familiar patterns
with no other purpose than to make me
fold the entire pile again before I open
the old steel trunk, dented on one side
and lift out the sweaters so I can carefully
lay the dresses and images inside
without accidental folds or complicated
thoughts, one on top of the other with him
buried in the middle.
Like an horary of the seasons or of my lives
I fold my memories away into thick piles
each fall and spring, counting off the years
as I outgrow that blouse or discard
that style, gradually leaving behind
those blue eyes and old dreams,
that confusion of thought on this sunny morning
when the air is so clear I can see the layers
of summers and winters and men
before I close the trunk again and bury the key
in the top drawer among my lingerie
until next year or the next,
or someone calls out of the past
and I have to re-fold the pile once again.
Rustle of Spring
From the placenta of waiting and sleep
Ruminating in the shards of memories
Of seasons past –
The autumnal partings that sever the leaves
from what once home.
Of fire and wind and frost that churn the past
into compost –
To sleep
To nourish
To procreate
A tomorrow – not of a snow-adorned sun
But one that traverses a hundred suns
till those first rumbles…
There –
Can you hear?
Riding the crescendos of harps
On the wings of the winds
Comes the peacocks of birth;
The color infused buds of rebirth
And new life to kiss those in slumber –
To awaken them…
To prepare –
for what is to come
(The season’s milieu)
In joyful songs and dance, awaiting
The first beautiful rustles of spring.
B- Feby Joseph
electric lightbulbs, cold cuts
& college debt
listening to beethoven’s
third piano concerto
and reading bukowski
like some neophyte poet
just cracked out of his action figure package
his head in the sand
i watch the open windows
and wait on the next nor’easter storm
that will soak me
on the way to working the late shift
so that i can keep myself in
electric lightbulbs, cold cuts
and college debt
thinking this winter has lasted forever
as all of the seasons
are their own miserable eternities
forever fooling us into thinking
that life is imbued with some kind of change
and as the beethoven ends
and the first fat flakes begin to fall
a huffing dog
farts outside the window
while the sky booms and wind rattles the blinds
its owner catching my eye and exclaiming
good doggy!
good doggy!
just as well as if the goddamned mutt
had brought down the thunder
or had won
the bloody westminster dog show.
