“The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”
I mistakenly thought was fiction
and I planted this year’s pear tomato
with blithely naïve predilection.
Egad, it grew like Jack’s beanstalk
like some overpowering addiction
forcing the zinnias and chives
to bent and yellowed eviction.
Even the pots on the deck
are muttering gruff malediction —
who knew one little tomato
could become such rabid affliction?
Pond pixels at dawn
play at reflecting
rippling jigsaw
its own dawn confecting.
What light pierces
it fires,
warning the eye:
Look fast —
but a moment’s sun
blazes
through this glowing cup,
this petal’d Chartres.
Deep is the need
to fill a chair
emptiness
pollutes the air
dissonant echoes
raw and red
make sepulchers
in ashy stead.
Remembrance Day 2018
With thanks to the perceptive eye of photographer S.W. Berg.
Emmy wanted you to see
what a little girl she used to be,
how she would get all ice-cream-coned
before her skills were practice-honed.
Now that she’s a big girl of three,
she cones a lot more tidily,
avows, it should be here appended,
the ice cream facial is recommended.
My thanks to the unknown photographer
and to the photogenic Emmy.
Distance
the eternal thing
chimeric lines
converge unseen
in unknown somewhere
sirens sing
the eye goes first
and next the dream.
Yet more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
The heat is searing
pressing, wet
we’re all bedraggled
impatient, yet
I think I see
that change in light
that vests the world
for autumn’s rite.
