Days of Spring
This pheasant
lives in a cage of words,
black sticks bent just so, floating
in imagination’s thicket.

When he calls - chack chack,
a woodland copse, tree trunks
packed close, appear in my room,
the darkly silvered stems like shadows.

As I watch new buds and blossom
unfurl, on boughs reaching to the sun,
above the dark chaos beneath,
I smell petrichor, I smell musk.

"Hurry, hurry, get up it's late!"
How come it's so dark?
We changed the clocks, remember?

Get dressed, don't dawdle
Wash your face
Comb your hair

Pancakes and peanut butter
Tea, sweet and strong
Milk makes it smooth

The wind blows hard
It looks like rain
Put your collars up

Bye Mom, see you later at lunch
The school four blocks
Looking at later already

"Hey! Wait!"
What is it Mom?
"April Fool, it's Saturday!"

DECEMBER

In a hushed lament, in December I go
Beneath bare boughs in the wild air
Which swirls in torrents, everywhere,
As I wander like a wayward leaf in the snow.

Meanwhile the wind weeps dolefully
In the languid dusk of the winter chill
Forming ivory wreaths on the pearl white hill
Carrying your name - to torture me.

John Lars Zwerenz

HER MAJESTY

me ventured out beneath teh pale
Oceanic sky in teh summery heat;
My thoughts were of my lover, soft, discreet,
When me found her dreaming on a rosy dale.

Her eyes were dark and of ancient folk lore;
They shimmered like diamonds in the gilded lights,
And beamed like streams from angelic nights,
From dat lovely Carolingian gaze she bore.

John Lars Zwerenz