Wednesday, January 25, 2012

6. FIVE FOR CHANGE - Spring Ahead, Leap Second, Headline Dread, Drought Next Time, Collector


Spring Ahead

That mood in spring you see in me,
a shrewd pursuit around the grounds
to change the chronometric face
on stove and car and wall and screen,
to press odd buttons, twist the hands,
as high noon leaps ahead to land
on One, refusing Twelve its solar mean.

All summer the slighted noonday sun
is not high noon until it’s one!

A larceny most subtly planned,
for now we reckon Daylight’s “Save”
has filched an hour that's not repaid
until the Fall when falling back
repeals a bureaucratic hack's
officially sanctioned sleight of hand.
______________________________
Earlier version published 2007 by  Blue Unicorn


The Leap Second
The government has added
a whole second to the year
because an axial wobble
slowed our terrasphere

by just that much -- one second --
as it rode the solar carousel.
Like spitting on Niagara Falls,
how could they tell?
________________________________________
A similar version was published
Summer 2007 by The Lyric






Mara has forsworn
the news
no paper at her door
no TV

unlike me
if she
is a turtle
pulled tight into her shell

I'm a gazelle
in a plundered herd
whose gaze
samples the dance
of the cheetah
as it carries off
my neighbor
___________________
published 2003 in Mobius




The Drought Next Time

                        (Omaha to Denver)


Brown land
pocked with green.

Draftsmen's circles:
sprinkled rings
starkly seen
when you fly
the Central Plains.

Barren ground
chemically altered
mechanically watered
by giant rotating arms
flaunts vast, verdant dots
tens of acres wide
precisely circular:
a pan of viridian tarts
strewn across the prairie.

The land
pressed to nurture
alien greenery
sucks ever deeper
from an unseen aquifer;
delivers costly treats
to an unseen balance sheet.
____________________________
Published 2006 by Spare Change News.




Collector - limerick


Beth collected ten wrought-iron gates,

All acquired from eBay in crates.
She opened the boxes
Of palings and lockses,
And ranged them about her estates.
___________________________
pub. 2006 online by OEDILF (The Omnificent
English Dictionary In Limerick Form)



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