(Poem #214)Mark Stern Wakes Up Shining cratefuls of plum, peach, apricot Are flung out of the fruit man's tiny store. Behind the supermarket glass next door: Landslides of grapefruit, orange, tangerine, Persimmon, boysenberry, nectarine. The florist tilts his giant crayon box Of yellow roses, daffodils, and phlox. A Disney sun breaks through, makes toys of trucks And waddling movers look like Donald Ducks And joke book captions out of storefront signs: Café du Soir, Austrian Village, Wines. Pedestrians in olive drabs and grays Are startled by the sun's kinetic rays, Then mottled into pointillistic patches. The light turns green, cars passing hurl out snatches Of rock-and-roll and Mozart and the weather. The light turns red. Why aren't we together? |
Mark Stern Wakes Up -- Frederick Feirstein
Clenched Soul -- Pablo Neruda
(Poem #213)Clenched Soul We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that always closed at twilight and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings toward the twilight erasing statues. |