Archive for the ‘W. D. Snodgrass’ Category
Bear Wallow On Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
In spray-paint, psychedelic, gaudy,
Fall scrawls its name – a blunt and bawdy
Challenge to the complacent wood.
We say: there goes the neighborhood;
It is not and it cannot come to good.
Soon, flustered leaves will sag like torn
Wallpaper; solid dark walls, worn
Through here and there, exposed a bitter
Sky while, on the bare ground, litter
And stub ends pile up everywhere.
Not even one green plant would dare
Poke its nose out in the crude air
Of catch-as-catch-can thievery, lust,
Cut-throat protection and sick trust.
Where year by year we walked together
Determined paths, a wilder atmosphere
Wheels in, flaunting its chains, blades and black leather.
— from Autumn Variations by W. D. Snodgrass
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Spring Wildflowers — Image by kenne
A STROLLING MINSTREL’S BALLARD
OF THE SKULLS AND FLOWERS
Dahlia, Amaryllis, Iris,
Flaunt their fragrance and their flair
As roman candles arc, desirous
To burst new treasures on the air,
Spill out their color and their scent
And whistle down the rambling bee.
When dazzle and pizzazz are spent
And every garden’s luxury
Of blossom’s gone to shreds or hock,
Where is that glamourie and that mask;
When January whips the stalk
What memory stills the rattled husk?
By lurch and stumble, change and growth
Struggling from all fours, we fise
Cranking the backbone up, though loath.
To lift our skull into the skies
Where the lit eye blinks out its longing,
Gathers the world, then from that height
Sends hosts of bright ideas thronging
Like fireflies sparking up the night.
What are the perfume and that pollen
Or all the brain’s fine fireworks worth
Once socket, stalk and spine have fallen
As acrid, black ash drifts to earth?
— W.D. Snodgrass
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Saguaros At Sunrise — Image by kenne
The Capture of Mr. Sun
The sun is a lion
circling his cage,
Caught for you, brought for you
on this wheeled stage,
Through fixed bars glaring
his wrath and his rage
Like a pen for the baby
or bedrails in old age.
The lion is a sunflower
with a broad gold face,
Its petals outstreaming
like a mane or the rays
Of that candescent Power
we all watch pace
Through the gendering heavens
on its circuit of days.
The flower is tracing
the sun on its rounds;
The carnival moves through
its orbit of towns;
The lion's cage rolls
your streets up and down
Where be pads and we shiver
at his smile, his frown.
-- W. D. Snodgrass
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Cooper’s Hawk On Black Tree– Grunge Composition by kenne
All night black tree
shapes wrestled their dark
angels or assailants; the deep woods
wracked by shattering, cracking;
then rain drove straight
sheets like a wave’s crash
wrenching leaves and birds’ nests
from the branch, battering
grain flat in the fields;
mice, rabbits in their burrows
drowned.
At first dawn, soft
mists down the valley rise till
light strikes, enamelling
each emerald green leaf
splattered clean.
— from “Summer Sequence” by W. D. Snodgrass
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Becoming is Superior to Being 