Two Middling Poems: September Grass & The Stage

Two Middling Poems:

September Grass

September Grass, always
Seems to have crickets
Ticking like clocks
(around their core)
And I can hear them
As I walk at twilight
Blurred, running through
The September Grass
I must have stepped
On a few in the dark
But they never stopped:
Ticking, ticking, counting
Time, time, time…
“What’re you dong?”
I asked the crickets…
They whispered—
I heard them:
“A private celebration”
They were watching me—!
Sight unseen, by me…
I just didn’t like time
Being clicked away by
Crickets, crickets, crickets
Then they all stopped—
Then I could start living Again…

#782 8/2/2005

The Stage (1958)

The stage is largely empty
The opening scene (Act I)
The Stage Manager’s Introduction…
The Paper Boy says:

“Paper, Five Cents!” [Vigorously]
It’s summer and the stage is hot

Time Capsule—
Afternoon arrives (Act II)
“Pantomime,” (whispers the Manager)
He is reading the newspaper…

(the stage is empty—dark)
A car goes by on stage

(a chair is used for the car)
The orchestra choir, in the pit
Sings…!
The Paper Boy sits down (rests)
(Act III) Twilight falls over the stage
The Paper Boy looks here and there
(his face has a flat affect; empty)

Time Capsule—we return to day

“Paper, Five Cents!” the boy says.
(he’s the most stable character
in the play)
The boy flaps his hands—
Like a big bird, with big wings
Slowly, slowly, slowly…they
Somehow turn into little wings
And back to no wings.

#781 8/2005

Notes, by the author:"The hard truth is often times the bare facts of the issue. I still have the medieval code, and the old ideals; in a world where it has largly disappeared.Yes, yes, I find myself, I find I do clash with the modern world. Perhaps unequiped to deal with the reality of it. And so somehow that provoked the two poems here. Lucky me, I have a young wife that is equiped to handle such a world, and she is my representative, for the rest of my time here on earth. What more could I ask for."

Dennis Siluk's web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com