Sorry for the delay in responding - I was travelling, and couldn't get to my files. Here's Summer Island.
Summer Island
You sit outside, consorting with your wine
as I, inside, consider what to say
or do to try to redefine the line
you sit outside. Consorting with your wine
now seems your choice; and solitude is mine,
and neither works to overcome the way
you sit outside, consorting with your wine
as I, inside, consider what to say.
And another, that was workshopped here a while back:
Toy Soldiers
The little tin men in their little tin hats
bang their loud little drums for the blood they won't shed;
and the ones who don’t fight lead the rat-a-tat-tats
when the little tin men in their little tin hats
fill the air with their calls like a clamor of cats —
until nothing is left but the rats and the dead,
and the little tin men with their little tin hats,
and their loud little drums, and the blood that's been shed.
And this older sequence (they're pretty, I guess, but I should have done more with the final repetends in the second and third):
A Bouquet of Triolets
This damp New England island spring
has hints of songs of cardinals
and that seems all that God will bring
a damp New England island. Spring
comes hard this year; the cold rains cling
and only wood-stove fire dulls
the damp. New England island spring
hears hints of songs of cardinals.
In summer’s dusk the beach-wise Labs
pinwheel and dart and bite the foam
that rattles stones and shells and crabs
in summer’s dusk. The beach-wise Labs
will chase and fetch till sunset grabs
last light from day, then shoot for home.
In summer’s dusk the beach-wise Labs
pinwheel and dart and bite the foam.
The island slows in autumn chill
as herons tip-toe through the marsh.
Red sumacs flare, swans thrum, but still
the island slows in autumn; chill
winds carve the emptied beach and spill
salt hints that winter will be harsh.
The island slows in autumn chill
as herons tip-toe through the marsh.
Dead gray and February bleak;
no color on this frozen beach
relieves the ice-flecked sands that streak -
dead gray and February bleak -
to meet a black horizon, seek
the end of day where gull bones bleach
dead gray and February bleak.
No color on this frozen beach.
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