When the summer ends
In shades of soft pink and pale blue on white,
I think of the peasant blouse you wore
That made you look like a gypsy flag
Or a table cloth
Or a warm roll folded in a napkin.
What I remember most
When August leaves me stupid with daylight,
Is how easily it slipped off
Like a soul in an upward breeze.
Burberry Ice was your fragrance,
Motorcycle grease your marker,
And oh how alike
Can be a small snarl or a knowing laugh.
Summer got old a long time ago,
And these things that used to thrill, I've done a million times.
If it isn't forbidden,
If it isn't dying,
Then as the autumn comes on, I have my books and my Coke with lime.
Still, I look for you by the roadside,
Covered with dust,
Offended,
On your way some place,
Happier Blue, patroness of the disappearing morning.
Forgive me, Rita, for borrowing your moniker. I think it suits any gypsy, don't you?
Read this twice and still feel like I could read it ten more times, for pleasure, and to get all the juice of it in my mind's glass. I had a peasant blouse like that, elastic at the top, and it was dangerously easy to come out of, indeed, slipping off like the blues on Sunday morning. There are disturbing sorrows in this poem, loss and grief, and knowledge that is uncomfortable as well as insightful, but my feeling leaving it is not sadness, but understanding and hope. Call me crazy.
ReplyDeleteyou pack a lot into this season of change...i am glad for a happier blue...and autmn is my fav time of year...so i will take a coke with a lime and sit for a while...
ReplyDeleteShay,
ReplyDeleteI am pleased to see the "break" was a short duration. I can't believe how many poems have gone up. It's like the ice cracked and your river is flowing again (maybe wrong season for this, but it what comes.)
I loved the line, "When August leaves me stupid with daylight..." That is such a good description of the hot days of August.
Like Hedgewitch, I could read this poem again and again and find something new in it.
The last picture made me sad, though.
I love my verification word, "ducks." There are so many meanings to that word:~)
"patroness of the disappearing morning" - that's a beautiful line.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the comments. And, the pic with you lying next to a lifeless fox is very sad.
ReplyDeleteFoxes are some of the most beautiful quadra-pedal terrestrials on our earth and lQQk how we leave them.
Oh, Dedgewitch, can I call you 'crazy'(lol)?
Shay, Love you for your 'mind'!
My comment (edited version):
ReplyDelete"Or a warm roll folded in a napkin." I love that!
My comment (unedited version)
"Or a warm roll folded in a napkin." I love that! Why can't I come up with stuff like that? That is SO sensual, so romantic. "Like a sow in a speedo" just doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm never going to be able to write like this. In fact, I'm a little depressed now. Screw it, I'm going to go have a Little Debbie cake or three. And, a Coke with lime.
having just read Mama Zen's comment, all i can write is "what she said."
ReplyDelete"Or a warm roll folded in a napkin."
"When August leaves me stupid with daylight..."
true Shay nuggets of gold far more beautiful than any piece of metal.
and i love that you have "diet coke poems" as one of your tags!
hope you're having a lovely week, Shay! ♥ d
I enjoyed this poem...your lines are very rich and packed with unique emotion. I also love your header picture...old-fashioned leather bound journal scribe...
ReplyDeleteah, those hot rolls!
ReplyDeleteAloha from Waikiki;
Comfort Spiral
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I so love the poems when you look back - beautiful, loss and longing, but an all-rightness to it as well. "Happier Blue, patroness of the disappearing morning". Wow.
ReplyDeleteBut...but...that fox is sleeping, right? Right?! *eyes welling up with tears* Right?
ReplyDeleteI agree with MZ's uneditted comment! I read your poems and think "How brilliant!" Then I think "Why the F- do I bother writing when I'll never come up with anything as gorgeous as the things Shay says every single day?!!" At least you're not an egotistical biatch or then I'd have to hate you. Now I just worship you.
ReplyDelete