October 2013

	October 2013 Scent of Autumn A Coffee with Neruda Descension Stygian Fields First Needle Down Timeless Days Hold Me as Your Time Autumn Arms of Sky There are Slums of the Heart Morningside	Scent of Autumn Evening cries to darkness with sparrow breath: spartan, quick, a commoner with a flinty edge, its bouquet of humus, berry, and worm.
A Coffee with Neruda a coffee with Neruda would have been …interesting quiet I think - at times yet his embers always thrummed his peace filled with observation his tongue I would imagine would wag the tales from our dogs. a coffee with Neruda would have been fruitless I suppose I don’t speak Portuguese we could only converse with our eyes, okay for lovers of all things save for words.	Descension The last of this day left stains on the sky, iodine and scabs on gauze. I can hear the sea, a low sonorous growl, restless, a snarl in its curling lips. the night wind has strange breath, something sweet something slipping from a bone. jasmine - carrion Endless sunset filled your hair. the air was elastic the first of this day was majesty the harnessed crackle of a shuttle launch the power of love in a smile.	Stygian Fields In the chiral black a hammer of froth washes my heels surging pulling at my toes constantly reclaiming giving, an unwitting succubus pulling back at life. On another Earth there might be no moon, no tides, or two moons and great swathes, mighty fists of water, upheavals pummeling, punishing seas. I walk what is… this new moon dark, stygian fields lit only by the cold breath of stars. on another Earth perhaps this heart is whole, perhaps my grief is a vast unknown.
First Needle Down the sky is rinsed every lawn ghosting with dew. I can hear the sea chumbling still fierce and gnashing from dawn’s fleet storms. calico kicks from pleats of her dress her leather sandals rasping on the sand between the cobbles. She squeezes lemons and guava, holding aubergine to the plank buttered light as if to find the match of her eyes. Anthony’s boy is late for a practice shins barking with reckless impatience, a bruise he’ll barely notice. He has a grin and a glance that will burn a hole in Sarah Ruth Steinman’s heart. Vince weaves through the morning, a cockiness, sour in last night’s clothes, soft leather loafers still shiny and whisper slick, a faltering gleam in his once steady eye. But the shadows are gaining the greedy gulls whine. the calico kicks shins bark the sky was rinsed, yet every raven winced as Vince pushed the first needle down.	Timeless Days He was a child of December, a water bearer’s son, scalded by his secrets walled away from the passions that ate through the skin of his life. He was a child of May, a Taurean’s son held rigid in her views, watery fists that let me go too soon, sluicing through the cracks. He is a child of now, an abandoned sun, sifting through the scrabble, and whatever is left of these timeless days.	Pastel-Series1 © Rayla Noel Hold Me as Your Time Take your time, hold it, pick your perspective. Have you lived enough of a life to have the buffet? Are you 20, 30, 40? Doubt it! 45? Maybe, depends on where you lived. Depends on the block. Each day the smorgasbord evolves. Flash fried? Slow roasted? Mashed? Sautéed, curried, a sauce reduced? Take our time, hold it, savor its tastes it desires. Hold your time. Let it run through your fingers. Is it sensuous, viscous, coating you in flavors? Is it whisper dry, barren, weak, cachectic? Grasp your time, hold it close to your breast. Share it, let others infuse it, but never give it away. For you have only a finite amount - of time I give mine to you, Hold me as the light, your light, hold me as your time.
Autumn Arms of Sky I am bark to back, beneath their crispy scarlet sleep, fingertips switching a tussled clatter-dance of gusts and failing sun Smears of cocoa march the sky, silhouettes of storm, soldiers spent, their last weapons levied, anvil helmets askew, fading to black, bloodied in autumn arms of sky.	There are Slums of the Heart There are slums in the heart fine cracks where murder leaks out, mind-cancers where chalk lines trace a dying soul. beneath broken dreams are rotting stairs, views boarded up, riddled by drive-bys. their are soured walls tattooed with neglect, etched by re-runs of revenge, mildewed with languishing regret its alleys are slick with old blood, scabbed over, seeping… courage leeched to brittle bluster and a downward glance. Thanks to John D. MacDonald for the line	Morningside I’m in the first breath of dawn, still riding the mask of dream, the final shadows meet demise, silver threads… the dissolving of morningside. I lifted scales from the eyes of justice. I unloaded all the villain’s guns. I crusaded for candidate ‘The Hulk’ “Time to pound Congress a New One.” ‘Clean means GREEN!’ I took the boot from the throat of the middle class. in the breaking dreams of morningside. I am beneath Egyptian sheets throwing them back… making love to you. I’m listening to your heartbeat ecstatic - complete as violet kisses the wall with the first breath of dawn on the morningside. Last night I solved a crisis on an ocean planet near our galaxy’s core. A star council convened and ruled in our favor, - one censure - no starships - no witness tanks. You took me in space - 'til we came upon the morningside. I’m walking down Asimov Key, sandals gritting, heron wracking their guttural cries. A full Hunter’s moon is an egg breaching birth across the channel, as we all scream our existence on the morningside.