“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.
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.
When it’s too hot to hum,
there’s nothing to do
but sit on a zinnia
and wish for a brew.
Every so often, dear reader, I have the urge to add “Burma Shave!”
The thickly leafy whatzzit tree
rises very pointedly
stretching most directionally
I wonder what I’m supposed to see.
Or maybe that’s a goose-type bill
and feathers made of chlorophyll
some arboreal whippoorwill
gowned in pinnate down and quill.
Or maybe…well, I don’t know how
I can see through its nom-de-bough
morphing sly from then to now
laughing at my furrowed brow.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives and the curator thereof.
