Friday, September 24, 2010

Autumn's like Autism

I recollect my times-a-dwellin:

Screen doors clattering, agitates my sweet escape

Of sugared plums and chrysanthemum

Holler my name and I must wake


(In your ample accent) calling, "Come get your supper!"

"Krokets and paling? I'd rather lick a brick."

'cause that smokey eel quivers my fork

"Eat! You're slim as a besom's stick."


I peer out the pane, at the laboring goldfinch

Plucking twigs and sticks, embellishing her nest with

The most firey oranges, scarlets, and ambers

A home fit to brood her chicks


And the mealy peaches descend from branches

Bruised and battered, just like my mother ached

And the fruit flies gather, to bid farewell

Amidst the over-ripened wake


And the barking herd, interrupts the order

Border Collie tongues drape like salty palls

Digging shallow holes, like catacombs

'tis a sign that autumn's come


I pull my stockings up, up past my hooked nose

Button-down my flannel, a dead-beat's hammy down

I lace my boots snug, so they cannot part with

my soles, why'd he leave our town?


So I tramped down on towards the marshy, mellow

Pond; string, hook in hand and baited by a fly

And I could not swallow the silent stillness

My breath broke the soundless sky


I casted once, then three times over

Hexed with a rat's luck, the hook swam bleak and bare

So I surrendered to the bank's botany:

Watercress, lotus; despair!


And the polliwogs, you will not decipher

Nor myself, for the sun has bit me brown

And my fingertips have sprouted like thorns

I am a man now, halfly-crowned


I'm the kindest king 'cross my kingdom

Just ask the acres, for they have never ached nor sered

For the water runs from the sound of song

That I hum towards her rainier (rain-ear)


And the botched-tailed cat sifts through the woodlet

Harvesting hares like crops, cultivated just for sport

And I've shunned him time, and time over

"The chicory and peas you may floor."


The spaghetti squash, squalls in fever

Under-tended and obtuse, eager to be stewed

And I knew not of my kindred's recipe

So it rotted and I rued


And the nude painted pantry, which preserves my pickles

Jams, jars, jellies, and a broom just in case

Jealousy ensues a pickled-panic

Becoming irate and sure to break


Beneath the floorboards, all slated and cedar

Where the badgers gather to burrow and gossip

Of that coyote's coat that he adorns daily

All outdated and archaic


And so I sleep all day, for my time is fleeting

Setting all the stars, to rouse me like a clock

And when the sun retreats, I hear the twinkling

A snooze button I have not


I can think of all the things you gave me

leaf piles, pies, heaps of figs; I could be sick!

And all this turmoil turns me taut

Autumn can be so autistic

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