To Everything There is a Season Suite

February 22, 2010
This started as an assignment in Creative Writing 238: take a cliche and give it fresh life. I had picked from the list "freezing to death" and wrote a poem. I liked it. I wanted to do more. So I dug out other seasonal cliches (or not so seasonal) and created a pastoral suite. The suite itself is cliche with my usual twists. From consummation and birth to the hereafter. Oh, how cliche.


Spring Has Sprung

Spring has sprung
          in a bed of love
          to the flow'ry bed
Spring has come.

Springs are sprung
          in an upstream swarm,
          a race to become
Sprung into one.

Spring has sprung
          in a seed that's sown
          to sprout and to grow,
Springing to one.

Spring! Sprung!
          fountains of the deep
          waters have broken—
Springing son.

Springs are sprung
          on the hands of time
          to the infant mind
Spring is one.


Dog Days

of summer moons
          howlings
          barkings
          yippings and yappings
          at silent sights and scents

of sniffing this and that
          and the other
          fresh smell
          stale odor
          butt hole
          connoisseur of pooh
          and all things aromatic
          master of the olfactory

of humping legs
          and pillows
          and oversized teddy bears
          anything with
          fur and four legs
          in heat

of pissing on trees
          and fences and
          grass and tires
          whatever presents
          itself as being worthy
          of being pissed upon
          for the pleasure of pissing
          piss piss piss

of chasing after
          cars
          cats
          tails
          sticks and balls
          tails
          cats
          cars

of laying about
          with nothing but
          to nip at fleas
          snooze and dream

of summer moons


Leaves: Much To Be Desired

The crowns of the deciduous morph from green to brown in varying degrees and stages of gold, pumpkin, and rust, signaling the end of endless days, portending the approach of cold and frost. From a distance, the colors mix and blend: a panoramic landscape destined for desktops and calendars.

Dun branches and twigs clutch each changing leaf, holding it high until, fingers splayed, it lets go to reach for something higher.

Now they're scattered all over the lawn. They need to be raked and bagged. Even with gloves, blisters form before the first pile is crammed and compressed into thick brown paper bags. It's only natural to want to jump in.


Freezing To Death

…his breath
                              hung in the air
                              like a ghost.
The heavens likewise with stone gray expiration
entombed the barren countryside.

His arms
          wrapped about his torso
                    like winding sheets.
Tree limbs creaked
                    like old bones
          in the flurry.

His feet
buried in his boots,
frigid markers in the snow.
The ground experiencing the last stages of rigor
interred the pastoral setting for a seasonal eternity.


Hope Springs, Eternal

Better than Hot Springs, Eternal.