AUBADE

In a new morning, it is cold, as if
An ice-boat has evolved from that light skiff
Which used to float quite lazily across
The summer waters, icebergs now. The loss
Of what she once knew actually existed
Has frozen all the water, and persisted.
Late in the night, the ice has reached her heart
Which crashed and burned, after a fiery dart
Had shot it down, and torn the thing apart.

TWO POETIC FRIENDS

When friends are poets too, and Heaven knows
Staunch in their efforts to sync with past time,
They’re equal in despair, like two fierce crows
That follow every wandering, thready line
Searching for sustenance. They must sustain
Those precious precepts both of them believe—
Through frost, through fire of sun, and ruinous rain.
Fast friends join in this task, which they’ll achieve.
But when they’re done, new bards forget foresight,
Ignore past work, dismiss this grand attempt
Bequeathed to them, begin anew to write,
To seek some order in a world unkempt.
We two friends move the clock’s hands in a pinch—
Expand our art a quarter of an inch.

THE BALLAD OF FRUIT SALAD

The apple girds against its fate,
A plum lies passive on the plate.
Bananas, naked, peeled away,
Are sliced against a roundelay
Of mangoes, berries, pears and such
That cringed before the whetted touch
Of blade against their ruddy skins,
Then swayed to tossing’s gentle spins.
Small daily expirations. Salad
Made from fruit deserves a ballad.

            —from TRINACRIA

MY FATHER'S GARDEN

My father had his garden laid in squares
With squash and carrots placed in equal shares.
Occasionally a zinnia poked through.
How it got there—well, we never knew.
He did not mind such now-and-then incursions
But could not stand my strange, wayward perversions,
For in his eyes I generated weeds,
Vicious shrubs, and less than perfect seeds,
And vines that suddenly would grab and choke
His vegetables for no good reason, poke
His precious peas, or make his eggplant’s roots
Wither up, or kill young pods and shoots.
He thought my gardening skills a bit surreal
Though his, of course, had classical appeal.

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         ____________

A SUMMER HOUR

A burgeoning bush, some butterflies,
Low wooden steps, warped, faded, rise
Amid the calm of idle talk—
The blur of shadows on the walk.
Sometimes a passing, random thought
Within winged fantasy is caught,
While puffed clouds in a bowl of blue
Lie quiet in the overview.
Inconsequential bits of light
Form auras there, against the night.

THE WHITE MOTH HUNTER

Above, in frigid air, a white moth there
Circles about, a crystalline white flake,
To find you, living by a frozen lake.
Drawn out by winter sun white moths freeze stiff—
You marvel from your perch. But I say if
In real life you should happen on that moth
In human form, so sensitive that both
Of you could trace the sky, your ties below
Would make you feel the creature had to go;
This thing to beautiful to live. A rout
Might clear your conscience, drive the memories out
And bring a sort of peace. In any case,
You’d cancel out its space, and so erase.

THE LIGHT IS FROM MOZART

Curtains hang like light,
Semi-sheer and fine;
Diffusing sharper sight
As light pours down like wine.

Peaches in a bowl
Glister, rounded there;
Each circumference whole
In the placid air.

Improvisations, faint
Sparkling of Mozart
Resound, transpose in paint
An image of his heart.

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         ____________

A HOLY PICNIC

A small child had a vision in the light
Of day, while sitting square upon the rug.
It seemed as if she rose to a great height,
And there, her senses gave a mighty tug
As if to warn her there was more to come.
And so there was. Two men, both clothed in white
Addressed her spirit, talked and laughed at some
Occurrences that waited out of sight
In future time. Her mother saw her stare,
Her silence, shook her, cried out Where are you?
You look as if you’re floating in mid-air!
Except for what it seemed, there in the dew
And wide expanse of Heaven, fear seemed odd
When she was only picnicking with God.

THE WATER'S DAUGHTER

There are some days that quiver, like the water
That runs below, so fleet, and holds the light
While life assumes a perfect sort of order
That glows and shimmers, far into the night.

Should we drink air and inhale liquid light rays,
A different point of view would soon be ours,
For we might dart, as minnows do, through bright days,
Unending, slicing through the brilliant hours

With nothing dull or heavy to weigh on us.
Each vision then could be a radiant spray;
No leaden thoughts to drag life down. The onus
Would be on us to catch the light that plays.

A daughter of the water is my mother,
That Piscean person where the minnows play
Within the shining droplets. There’s no other
Can guide me through the meteor of each day.
 

HOUSE SALE

A wind of change flies through the halls,
Pushing the prints upon the walls
Askew, and tumbling each old quilt
And threadbare doilies, placed with guilt

In heaps upon the tables there.
A strange regressive waft of air
Speaks of the past, but not next year
When, doors locked, the raccoon and deer

Will wait for salt and peanut buttered
Snacks in vain; hear no words uttered.
For now each chattering china bird
Repeats the message it has heard—

Away with order, calm, and peace!
Some outgrown clothes, an old valise
Whirl in chaotic dance. Outside,
The glider rocks on its wild ride

With canopy at rakish tilt,
Evoking memories, like silt
Disturbed upon a river’s bed
As ghostly as the walking dead.

Two cars’ impatient engines hum
Beside a loaded rubbish drum
As handlers clear out every room,
Leaving a box much like a tomb.

                          —from Society of Classical Poets

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         ____________

A SUMMER HOUR

A burgeoning bush, some butterflies,
Low wooden steps, warped, faded, rise
Amid the calm of idle talk—
The blur of shadows on the walk.
Sometimes a passing, random thought
Within winged fantasy is caught,
While puffed clouds in a bowl of blue
Lie quiet in the overview.
Inconsequential bits of light
Form auras there, against the night.

THE WHITE MOTH HUNTER

Above, in frigid air, a white moth there
Circles about, a crystalline white flake,
To find you, living by a frozen lake.
Drawn out by winter sun white moths freeze stiff—
You marvel from your perch. But I say if
In real life you should happen on that moth
In human form, so sensitive that both
Of you could trace the sky, your ties below
Would make you feel the creature had to go;
This thing to beautiful to live. A rout
Might clear your conscience, drive the memories out
And bring a sort of peace. In any case,
You’d cancel out its space, and so erase.
 

THE LIGHT IS FROM MOZART

Curtains hang like light,
Semi-sheer and fine;
Diffusing sharper sight
As light pours down like wine.

Peaches in a bowl
Glister, rounded there;
Each circumference whole
In the placid air.

Improvisations, faint
Sparkling of Mozart
Resound, transpose in paint
An image of his heart.

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         ____________

VAGARIES

Grandpa set two states a-buzzin’
Just for wedding his first cousin.
Stood to reason inbred aunties,
Grandpa’s daughters, lost their panties.

Smartest one was Eddie’s mother;
Ditched his errant dad (a bother)
For a better class of guy, she said—
(Looked good in ties, and was well read).

And Ed got all the benefits
Of a good life. Yet now he sits,
A bit of ash, and rather glum
Within a columbarium,
And neither of us understands
The vagaries of life’s fine sands.

AS THE UNDERWORLD TURNS

Like her sis, Persephone
On fair Adonis set her sights.
Underworld talk had it that she
Interfered with sister’s rights.
So, old Zeus ruled there’d be seasons!
Earth’s year went, two-thirds, to ladies.
Goodness knows, Zeus had his reasons—
Life stayed sweet in the Cyclades.
Under, next to Hades’ furies
Cabbage and anemones,
Kissed to life, were blessed by Ceres,
Bringing Zeus down to his knees.

NINETY-NINE PARK STREET

The fence is high; protects the small yard there.
Dead bittersweet leads to the grey steps, where
There used to be a bell, now ripped right out,
So those who want to gain admittance shout.

In my imagination, I suppose
Once more I pass the spot I dug the rose
At 3 A.M., took it to where I’d moved,
Because the landlord thought that it behooved
Him to own all the things within his ground
Though he could not possess the light, the sound
Of laughter, where prismatic colors ruled,
And fires of creation flashed and pooled,
Nor all the warmth within that sacred place—
For what remains of that, none can erase.

_____________________

GIVING BACK

It seemed I missed you most at dark of day
When you trudged home, to find me waiting there.
And though I didn’t know just what to say,
We comforted each other, in a way.

You were my mother, after all. You’d pay
For my bus fare, and then fend off the stare
My father gave each morning; the delay
I had to make because he choked to say
Good Morning to me, as the fall leaves lay
About us, dead. And only you would care.

Still, you were lumpy, fat, disheartened, grey,
And I was angry, longed to get away.
If only we could go back to that place—
Return the love that time cannot erase.

ALBIE'S WALL

Ivy covers our neighbor’s wall—
Makes a green home for birds that chatter.
On summer days, as I recall,
Our orange door opens to wings that scatter

When in the light of early June, all
Rain that falls is just a splatter
Of perfect moments, hours in thrall
Hold promise to make moments matter.

And every aubade of bird call
Seems made of silver; either that, or
Avians, cluttering up the wall—
Chatter of which fresh worm is fatter.

Still others plan to strike the screen,
Just when a dim human shape is seen.

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         ____________

LOST IN JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen was clever, it’s true.
She wrote of the world that she knew,
Though in between writing
Her tales were so biting
Her social adventures were few.

That clever and English Miss Austen
Would often be very engrossed it
A novel satiric,
Or slightly more lyric,
She didn’t think twice of the cost in

Avoiding each party and ball;
She found she’d not missed them at all.
She sat ’neath a soffit
Without any profit
And novels piled up in the hall.

Jane might have been Mrs. Bigg-Wither.
She wanted to, but traversed thither
And published her works,
Then reaped all the perks,
While London went into a dither.

What is the moral of that?
From where our dear authoress sat,
While the name of Jane Austen
Went over to Boston,
Bigg-Wither seemed best for a cat!
 

EMILY DICKINSON: A BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Emily Dickinson
Wished Mr. Higginson
Hadn’t been so loath
Her poems to critique.

Higginson, piqued
At her rhyme and her syntax,
Wished he could toss them
Right into next week.

Em then dissembled—
She loved to seem small, for
It lessened the hurt
Of responses like this.

She spoke from the hallways
And hoped that he’d always
Remain in her life
And perhaps give her bliss.

Was there a romance?
Only a slight chance,
For he thought that Em was
A bit of a bat.

She served him some sherry,
But that was as merry
A time as they ever
Would have—that was that.

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         ____________

O Frabjous Day!

       O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

       —Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky”

 The twelfth was father’s birthday, so he said.

However, I found Dr. Harrington

Came late, delivered tired, went to bed;

Kept to his hours once his work was done,

Filed father on the thirteenth. Pale and wan,

Edwardian, my father had no head

To use for business, art, or moving on—

He had that extra day, the twelfth, instead.

Well, what of it… two kids to be fed

With cereal and toast, and each bonbon

Meant more subservience to those who led

The county government, that filthy con.

He thought it was a weakness to have girls.

Though one was shy, the other truculent,

He thought the latter better, she with curls;

Enjoyed it when her narrow soul would vent

With screaming, red-faced fury only he

The Purse-String King, could solve with little bribes;

A hair bow, or a sweet treat in a tin—

How good to be the one who runs the tribe.

And so I say to you, too bad that, harried,

He hadn’t pleased his mother when he married.

What Geese May Teach

My mother had the power that knowledge wields,

So questions such as—Would you like to go?

Were never invitations, but commands

To fly away, cross yellow fields and low,

Like summer insects, stuck upon windshields.

A raggle-taggle group we were, and so

Like sandflies could not change what time demands.

Beneath a half-known psychic undertow,

My mother screeched her well-worn, wearing wheels

As we pulled up to watch the wild geese soar

In ordered honking triangles. Much more,

We’d missed such ordered symmetry before.

The World Arises*

The world lies sleeping on a lumpy couch,

Wrapped in some well-used inconsistencies.

Lacking a fleeting kiss, a warming touch,

It dreams a vision of no rest, no ease,

Yet morning always comes. The world gets up,

Brushes the sands of reverie away,

Gulps down some coffee and a little sup,

Walks out to face the cold impassive day

As if its fears for that new day were gone.

Dark and monotonous, the tasks it faces

Have no good end, cannot assure bright dawn,

And but for brilliant shards, some streaks and traces,

Occasional assertions of the right,

Have no expectance of a coming light.

    *from Contemporary Sonnet

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         ____________

BECOMING AN ARTIST
       For my teacher Peter Busa, Il professore

His rumpled jacket hid a threadbare shirt.
The thing about him was, his aura sang.
His shoes, well scuffed by New York pavement dirt,
Walked in a sure, slow tread. The bronze bell rang—

You sensed he had a secret, deep and strong,
He held next to his heart; a mystery
That called you out to join, to sing his song—
A lilting, vagrant, saucy melody.

He was an artist. What he had to show
Cost nothing. Nothing said about the raw
Of loss, bad luck and evil, creeping slow;
Those fights for truth with snaggletooth and claw.

Still, knowing this, you chose to laugh along,
And hope to join this straggling, glorious throng.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES, REVISITED

Rude, raucous boys threw my books from the bus
When I was young. My mother made me go
Walking the route the bus had taken us
To reach my house. I cried, and made a fuss.
My papers blew across a sodden field,
A deep and muddy ditch spat up my books,
And I bent to the power all mothers wield,
No longer challenged adolescent looks.

Today an unknown rash or some malaise
Would keep me from such adolescent trysts.
The boys would lose their college funds, and craze.
We’d meet again at the psychiatrist’s.

Harassment suits eventually would be filed,
Scholarship money for the victim child.

THE DESK AND THE DOVE

The morning sun rose. It was May
When cirrus clouds clung to the roof,
And Mama rang. I wondered why—
Most times she was reserved, aloof.
What do you want, this natal day?
She must have planned some secret spoof,
As flickering wings flew whistling by
Around her memories of youth.

Dear desk, you glowed from an array
Of dusty walnut, yet forsooth!
A dove within my mother’s eye
Looked out at me; I knew the truth—

Upon my yellow desk, a dove
Had settled, and its name was love.

ONE APRIL DAY
      for Ruth Guillame

The air made free with sparkling sun. The wind
Blew us to your high house above a lake
To where you were, your sheets and garments pinned.

You dropped your clothespins straightaway to take
My mother to your door, then went inside
While I stayed in our old grey car alone.
We hadn’t come so far--a little ride;
I was just baggage, neutral as a stone.

And so I sat alone, all narrow-limbed,
Awkward and thin, an adolescent rake,
My teeth constrained in braces, hair untrimmed,
With no words yet to speak for my own sake--
Not knowing you had noticed my red skirt,
The gypsy rose in wired teeth, the hurt.

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 Sally Cook Poems in EPO Prior to 2023

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