"Autumn Hymnal, or the Burgess Quartet" by T. G. Caston

"Autumn Hymnal, or the Burgess Quartet"

1.

Hail to you Honeybee! Wings around my Adam’s apple, that blossom which you serenade so sweetly with a sonorous hum, a buzz. Descend onto my neck and caress my stubbled skin with your individual stinging nettle. Release your venom into my circulative stream and allow my throat to swell. Make me feel your pain, sweet pain and as I scream out, remember that this is a psalm I sing to you. 2.

Summer collapses like a weak-ankled pirouette, her cheek resting on hardwood. The tilt that causes leaves to brown clogs a duck pond. Mucks it up. In a literary sense there is decay but beauty is in malevolence. Summer collapses but not before bird song chorus changes, cicada mass funerals “But best of all he loved the fall” but why write about yourself, the Fall was one woman, one snake, blind and a monument in Idaho. Fall rises an indecent erection like the Washington monument toppling foundations of collapsing structures. Falling rubble, be careful this a hard hat area. Fall rises apples fall. Fruit flies rise to the occasion an is apple born of them. An orchard does not burn but smolders, rots. 3.

Scare a bird from a hiding tree and fold its wings to its sides. A feather is a golden calf to a subway rider but to an aesthetic it is a dearly begotten son. Scare a bird from a hiding tree but do not disturb its peace. A stranger might not understand the sensitivity required of them so let us become familiar with the unladen Swallow; trust the Thrush. Clarity is a golden tipped wing- security a tightrope. Comfort a scaring bird. Tuck it into bed. Scare a bird from a hiding tree. Watch it flail and scream and whine its wings through sickly air. Hear it cry for ambivalence, for the quota to have been met. Pray that it comes back. 4.

Hail to you hornet’s nest! Whose home my covered foot steps through, disturbing the delicately made beds of pupa and queen bee. Swarm around the trunk of my chest with an ambivalence tied hand in hand with a cynegetic impulse to defend, to kill. Land your blows upon crook of my shoulders in chaotic symmetry. Cry your Whitmanian yawp and in the midst of your frenzy, find reformation.

“Lava Lamp/Space Takeoff” Photo by R. Santos