Autumn town: a scent of smoke and dread beginnings

cool breeze comes: barren where I stand

silence: cleansing and haunting

Shiny jet plows the dusk cloudfield

watching the patterned sky – like an old friend

cool breeze chases the leaves away

wander the empty roadside, shiver and remember

of school, and childhood’s cruel tricks

a breath unmasked by fall chill

the colors here appear as gray; the dying season still

my every return renews, draws me closers

leave, but silence takes my scream

a net of blackbirds circles

the dying corn

steel radio towers spawned from the ground

its signals race away

racing along this autumn road

the gray sky a closing wall

the river valley bridge

its terminus lost in a fading shroud

the car speeds away the unknown

and the words dry on the last page

the black ink seeps down

a tangled wish

desperate phantoms of unexplored

head slowed and viscous

it was the road and not the place

Walking, cloaked in stillness

the sun a water-color smudge

in the half-light of fog

that lies like layers of wedding cake

 

Red, green and gold

a kaleidoscope of fractal sunlight

maple leaves like a bloodstain on the ground

the rustle of scarecrow stuffing

a shadow arcs across the sky

 

The frost fingers crawl an old wall

racing in bent angles toward the edge

the withered garden; rotting apples on the ground

all sinking into the earth

a keening cry echoes

 

I see the circling hawk

with stealthy purpose, suspended above

leeches vapor in a slow, inexorable descent

the spiral dance a forewarning