Last year's leaves.
Cigarette butts.
Dog shit.
On the street, a Jack-o-lantern
smashed, its colour faded.
In front of the rooming-house,
a teacup in the grass.
In my garden, wrinkled red
knuckles of rhubarb,
the shovel I lost
in the first November storm.
5 comments:
Ooh love the wrinkled red knuckles! My preference would be for a different word for shit (dung, filth, manure, muck, leavings?), not because I'm offended, but for the chance to be more descriptive.
Ha, Joanne I have a poem somewhere I wrote while contemplating what the melting snow was uncovering in my Winnipeg back lane - it's quite the excavation!
I like the the last stanza. Hungry for a few more details - what colour has the jack-o-lantern faded to? is the teacup whole or cracked? Patterned?
Nice, Joanne. And I love the last two stanzas!
Do people still say Jack-o-lantern, as lovely a word as it is? Somehow, it doesn't fit following the bluntness of, Dog shit. I wonder if in this case, a carved-out pumpkin, might sound better...
Love it! Might I suggest you simply title it "Spring Thaw"?
I seem to remember rather a lot of dog deposits after thaw (haven't lived in a winter climate for decades).
The pumpkin surely must be all mushy or if not then that might be worth noting ... in other words, let us see more of it.
The teacup in the grass (is the grass brown or green?) is a nice touch. Ditto the shovel.
haha -- I love the whimsy of this Jo.
the only thing I balked at was a jack-o-lantern...can it be a pumpkin from hallowe'en or something? and also tested my credulity that it would be on the street all winter. (although here in saskatoon thisyear, could hide a whole friggin' pumpkin patch on most streets and still not hit level with the road...but that's pothole heaven for ya!)
maybe gutter? and yeh, washed out orange to what, puce? something gross, gross us out more before you throw us the pretty teacup in the grass. AWESOME RHUBARB!! <---caps for that.
maybe one descriptor of the shovel? instead of "the", yellow or metal or ?
also make us smell this stuff. you know you wanna. or describe the snow mould. :)
luvvit.
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