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Poems

Downtown at Dusk

In April when the crepe myrtles and cherry trees bloom,
city folk are reflected in the rain’s puddles,
by water that serves as mirrors for impressions. 
Wind whips billowy clouds into an eastern gloom,
while on the shiny street, a wayfarer huddles
beneath the tall windows of lordly professions.
The sun leaves plum-shaded shadows beyond buildings
and beams wash walls in apricot and tangerine.
In this fine twilight, a black cat’s lime-gold eyes glint;
hazy rays catch rich institutions’ burnished gilding.
Night falls on folk fat and merry, lonely and lean.
The cat leaps.  Windows glow with a lemony tint.
In the darkness, people’s reflections disappear;
edifices are shades of coal and emery.
By night, people’s luminous private lives appear,
while day’s brilliant impressions fade to memory.

Categories
Poems

The Dark Blesséd Night

While merrily drunk on proud vintages,
While the dark new moon lies cloaked behind clouds,
While clean, industrious folk sleep and dream,
And the idle markets await their crowds,
Together we forget the coming dawn,
Who daily disrespects our mortal race
With her honest rays and revealing beams
That shine such hard light on each aging face.

Instead we clothe ourselves in nudity—
In the habit as that which we were born—
And sport in an echo of our lost youths
From which ease, increasingly, we are torn,
And, hiding ourselves upon each other,
Make as though night shall ever cloud the streets
Whose welcome blindness will never censure
Our maturing souls or our tumbled sheets.