Note, that not all of these poems are about summer - to be clear.
They were written in the summer of 2005, 2006, 2007 and, we expect surely, beyond; some may be love poems, others angry or sorrowful and some yes, we hope about summer itself and inspired by the season -- summer & all it brings - necks, throats exposed, parks in full bloom, the risen sap, the women in their summer dresses, hips swaying, body moving, the men - hair waving in the heat. summer comes full on and we take it as it comes... whether easy or soft, hard or with joy, we write what we live, what we see or imagine or know or intuit. We document what we see, feel, taste.
Note, that our Love Poems section will still have new additions, as will our sections for France.
The world is there for the writing. - s.r.p., midwinter, 2008
advent
For years i rang bells here,
the fifth alto being "mine."
i had long claimed it as my own.
sadi ranson-polizzotti
american gothic | a poem
It is Sunday early summer. The close thunder rolling. We two beneath white sheet. I breathe the scent of you. Rain slaps the windows
August 4th, 1994
In the overheated, overcast of August 4th,
2005, I found myself quite by accident in
the shop where you found for me the first
gift you would give. A necklace – garnet,
glowing and so rich, “To match your hair,”
birthday kiss
What if it should happen;
what if in the middle of the field as the sky dimmed
our hands slipped naturally - fell each to the other and held,
would you then be bold enough to take it; or would that ambivalence abound
bravery
You call me Brave.
Brave because I say what must be said;
You do not see I fear it too.
We are not so different.
cold war or episcopal voodoo
How boring of you to become suddenly so dull.
A tree that offers no shade only bright sunlight –
no summer respite for this humid, damp skin.
Why you won’t even play hand-slap or staring games.
dog days of summer
The dog-days of summer; an expression I never did understand
Humidity blankets the coast in a haze.
and the beach begs to be walked and I do… take in wave after wave
Ought I send my message in a bottle, but then what it would say.
downtown, 5:30 a.m.
The taxi stops on the early-morning corner.
Just as I am inhaling a final desperate drag on a sometimes cigarette.
Such a drag not to finish, but taxis are rare this week.
Bless him for stopping; I could kiss the yellow door.
early summer | late fall
There is no point in my writing words of nicety.
Those poems of love, sentimental regression.
What point then, to speak of your three-wheeled
creaking chair. The one I recall from those first early
days of late summer, early Fall. Our two week
eighty-eight degrees | 88
Eighty-eight degrees, you – me
an orchard where we kiss, cousin
my summer slip loosed, hip-hiked your left-hand
moving in smooth circles as you
trace each grouping of
entendu
Nous nous-entendons . We hear each other.
Keep to plan, sleight of hand, you appear, then disappear.
The sunset slipping, me in my peach pale slip, pale slip of a girl,
nymph who peers to glassine envelope of water.
exile
The sea needs something to do.
Sends wave after wave,
each slapping harder at my face.
'She says: This you deserve.
I am her bitch. back-broken, haggard.
fall at your feet
It is the sound of my footsteps that alarms.
They are one, singular. Without you, I am incomplete.
Half a person, wanting and yearning, I parse the miles,
I stretching to you, trying to reach your long arms, yet never quite
flotsam
A few words of love were all that were needed.
Thug, back-alley bully.
The shell you carry on your back; a hermit crab.
Your white house does not protect you;
forecast
He speaks to me of the high, high cirrus that streak across
an otherwise clear morning sky. Of strato cumulus and of grey days
and of snow heavy skies. Of floating white nimbus against
heat
It was July and it was hot and like a cat,
some animal, all heat and want and desire
I sniffed you out. Found that thing for which
I did not know I had been looking and it was you.
You, you, you and you alone would soon become
the shape of all that I desired, desire running deep.
ictal moment - two word poem per c.e.
A few seconds perhaps, brief absence.
Petit mal.
Passing image – a smile,
it travels quick, slides across the table
in the aftermath, the awfulness of mania ~
In the aftermath, the awfulness, the wasted time of mania
you’ll find me dropping alligators, tears the size of lakes,
tepid, pure. No one sees such things; I keep to darkened rooms
hazel-eyed and blank it is myself I would shut up for self-murder,
for all the hurt, the fucking up, the not getting it right.
In the Heart of the Afternoon
I remember the gentle tap Of my shoes on cobblestone On the linden-lined street That led to the brownstone Where we’d meet.
Indian summer | Her curse
I remember the awful late summer
The one you and she labeled Indian
as if the rounded, golden harvest moon
belonged to you and would have nothing
to do with the rest of us. We were specks,
mere witnesses to your cheap passion play,