Fast Day 226 September 30 2011 {Pumpkins at Rapture Time}

Pumpkins at Rapture Time


climbing through the fields,
climbing through the glean,
looking for a pumpkin
with a green handle
to get for Halloween…

In the viney web
of jack o’lantern raw,
I bent to pick a pumpkin
as the Rapture winnow
harvested us all…

heavenly that combine,
and the call divine,
to disk the earth infected:
to rotate all the crops
and pick us from the vine!

As I bent to gather
a pumpkin from its patch
the Rapture passed on by me,
it swung down low and straight
but did not stoop to snatch.

All this for jack o’lanterns,
all this for Halloween,
self-righteousness has fled the earth
and it is more peaceful now
than we have ever seen!

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notes

Based on Ruth's story of how the Rapture missed her while she was picking pumpkins.
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Fast Day 225 September 23 2011 {Skinny Dipping at Summer Places}

Skinny Dipping at Summer Places

A metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle is pretty good-
rustic with the smell of the forest,
furniture in Murphy’s Oil mood
we sit, reflections in a log cabin window.

The androgeny of marshmallow is a simile:
roasted over a bonfire
on beaches of our midnight skinny,
where linen moths dance before the flame.

Reflections of summer moon float upon the river
in whose depths late night fish see
our antediluvian exposures…
from our swimming suits and morals free!

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notes

no notes

Fast Day 224 September 17 2011 {When Noble Flowers in Autumn Fall}

 Rudbeckia Blooming

When Noble Flowers in Autumn Fall

Let Loosestrife and Feverscourge now run free!
brawling with the recluse Japonica;
a shouting viridescence of flowers!
a tumult of their voices giving scent!
Look at Rudbeck, standing tall and gallant,
bleeding red salvia from num’rous wounds
from bayonets of the stiletto thorns!
The amaranthine tints of  burning bush
and outrage of fiery Jerusalem,
illuminate the stricken petall’d blooms:
a marmalade of shadows cinnabar
and chutney of smoked mahagonnay!
periled by mutual competition,
they thrust themselves into the mordant fray
and bind their green stems with black bandanas,
to await mass grave prairie fires of spring!
Let our hearts be contagioned by their blaze,
and find a chivalry and purpose to amaze!

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notes

Feverscourge = I change "feverfew" which comes from "febrifuge" meaning to make fever run away to the above "feverscourge" which seems to be the same notion.
Japonica = Japanese Anemone
Rudbeck = rudbeckia, pictured above
burning bush and fiery jerusalem are plants of vibrant color in the autumn.

Fast Day 223 September 10 2011 {A Man From New Orleans...}

A Man From New Orleans Playing Music
At The Detroit Ball Park, September 10, 2011

To Thy mansions in the sky…

that raise me up from poverty,

blessed music give me wings

and the longitude of kings,

for that is where my soul shall fly!

I played the cornet-à-piston

from the birth bed and to the tomb:

my sacred language… and profane!...

oppress my music to your shame!

these harps, these pipes of doom and bloom!

They hear flash mob ragtime and jazz;

drowned neighborhoods, dope fiend, and brass;

Sweet Jesus, in dressed-up ease

sets down notes, for when He frees

us poor – the mighty to surpass!

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notes

cornet-à-piston  = original French name of the trumpet, the "pistons" are the valves the musician fingers.

New Orleans, past and present, music for cradle to the grave.

The Tigers were playing the Twins, and they won in the 9th.
There were many homeless outside on the streets, which is an odd sight in a Christian nation.

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