I. Summer
Somewhere summer is gold, I’ve heard
but here it is gray as tired earth.
Like light mysterious to the prism,
so all it is nothing.
I pity those near the mouth of the den
embroidered with ceaseless energy.
By day by light accosted,
at night by heat exhausted.
To witness is to fall
short of empathy.
Where, then, are the fairy tales of haze gray summer,
Of dog days beneath crackling pines?
It seems still
Somewhat a wonder
That we should
Own a windowsill
Our talents providing
A final resting place for
Ladybugs and dust motes
Cast verdant by
Midday sun wasted
On office-dwellers unrepentant
wood smoke redolent
of campfires at Ocean Pond
of spruce and pine pilfered
from the lumber yard where they worked
my father and
friends of my father
pleiades redolent
of amberglow stories told
of blinking night over
zipper pulls announcing silence
still, low burns the fire
warm glows the lantern, still
Give me
The road for miles
And nowhere I need be
And I shall paint you in sunset
Alas
I cannot describe how thrilled I am to have a poem featured in Panoply, a literary zine based here in Florida.
“Argyle Forest” is a poem about growing up on the suburban margins of Jacksonville. You can read it over at Panoply with my deep thanks.
Raincast mosaic on my hotel window
streaks Fogo de Chao and
blurs too-small memories
where here (for example) I shook the man’s hand
too small to see past
the shadow of work
or there (I presume) the slash pines stood
too small to stand against
Cheesecake Factory.
In silence unaware
they were taken down,
down across the river flowing.
Drop a quarter in the coffee machine
and play cup poker with the
boys at the side door you
draw a pair of aces blushing
and the boys fete you
on the good Hyster riding
high until lunch we
punch out and go down,
down across the river flowing.
Raincast mosaic washing down to the river, too.
I asked the wind-beaten mountain
what she would become
Everything and nothing, she whispered
like song
Is all we’ll ever be
all and not at all
That night there was no mountain
where the wind-beaten mother stood
only darkness all
all and not at all
By her whisper-song unsettled
I turned to grandfather in morning sun
to ask who I would become
I was you once, he rang like a winter bell
like a river stone
And you will be me
That night there was darkness only
where grandfather stood
Darkness only in me
But I am no mountain
Fan Lewis says he’ll take out the knees
of any old boy who comes at him, why,
he’d hit ‘em with that
million-candle flashlight
and down they’d go.
Ain’t nobody
got the better of him yet,
shit.
Six beers at a time Fan drinks
while the Saturday sun climbs
Set ‘em up six in the Koozie cups
six cans down and a trip to the Royal
Three cans in, Fan Lewis wants to tell you how,
blonde hairs loose on his tee shirt shoulder,
there must be a way (four cans now)
to solve the problem of perpetual motion
We just ain’t
thought of it yet
Six beers at once Fan Lewis drinks
when the Sunday blues ring
Set ‘em up five, and four to go
there’s Monday coming with nothing to show
No award or esteem could ever
match for pleasure
the pure electric joy I share
with my dog when we
notice each other
in the same room
C.B. Crenshaw 