8

Hey.
So maybe you're reading this poem
during (to borrow from Irving)
"the breathing fragrance of spring,
the golden pomp of autumn,
the depth of winter when nature
lies despoiled of every charm
and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow,"
and if you are you probably
either are looking forward to or missing
"the soft voluptuousness of summer," right?
But do you remember near the end
the droning hum of cicadas
forming a sonic ceiling,
widespread like acacia tops,
and drooping green flora
you could've sworn looked
more luminous, "voluptuous" back in spring
but now are tinged in banana yellow?
How about the smattering of chlorophyll-starved
locust tree leaves lounging in the sere, wiry grass
at your feet, making you think instantly
of autumn, but remembering it wasn't?
BUT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT, DIDN'T YOU?!?
THEY REMINDED YOU, DIDN'T THEY?!?
Ah...sorry.
Anyways...
I was gonna go on an armchair visit
to Mount Parnassus and visit Cleo,
Muse of History,
in her lofty domed Palladian hall
stocked with many dusty tomes
piled up all over the place
(seems about apropos, right?)
so she could tell me
some things that happened
in years past.
I'd invite you to come along
unless you already got bored and stopped reading
this poem to go play Fortnite or Pokemon Go
or update Facebook
or watch one or two
out of a gazillion Netflix shows
or what-the-hell-ever you do
that may or may not be entertainment-related,
but if most of you are still hereWHOOSSHH!!!
And here we are.
And there she is
as usual perched at her clerk's table
surrounded by liquor bottles
(and the books, of course)
while she sobs heavily
with her head laid down
over her tunic'd arms,
and for the moment has ceased to write
in her latest account book
while (as usual) drunkenly muttering,
"Not again! Not again! Not goddamn again! Je-sus!"
Hmm...maybe not a good time, yeah?
But, ah! I see you've noticed
the framed portraits on her table-
a historian Who's Who, to be sure.
There's Herodotus, Thucydides,
Suetonius, Josephus,
Gibbon, the Durants, Zinn, Goodwin,
Santayana in a heart-shaped frame (!),
and (yeek!) one of Henry Ford
with a stiletto lodged in his forehead!
Wow! That's...interesting.
O-kay, then!
I guess it's up to me...

There were once whole groups of young men,
so so many young men
smiling, laughing,
chatty, excited,
uniformed, marching in step,
swatting away insects,
mopping their perspiring brows
from the heat of another golden
European summer,
ready to fight and die for a noble cause
but very soon to find out
about getting cold, wet feet,
or having no feet at all,
or arms,
or legs,
or faces,
or sanity,
or lives,
or wealth of innocence,
and to know death can come in a cloud,
or that a single shell can doom men to nil,
or wonder at least once before their
own personal darkness may fall
why the hell men are running about
in a place called No-Man's Land,
or why there seldom is any gain, 
or why that one Christmas
can't happen again,
because it was quite nice,
and many friendships were made then,
and many stories and jokes were told,
and many drinks passed around,
and many football matches played,
and many carols sung off key
about "Peace On Goddamned Earth"
and it...just...why the hell can't it?
(brassholes),
or even a year or so after the outset
find amazement in that the romantic weaponry
of lance and horse of the last century
seems as quaint as the stone hammers and spears
of primitive man.
This globe vomited up mire
and guns
and many,
many,
many shells
(except any undetonated ones buried
on lush European farmlands, of course)
and flesh
and bones
and blood
and souls
like it had the worst hangover ever.
And more's the pity,
the carnage never really ended.
It never has
and
it never will.

Am I being too much of a Daniel Downer so far?
Here's a fun fact:
did you know that 73 years ago
this month
the Japanese grew two of the biggest ever
standalone Enoki mushrooms
two days apart
that grew way way up
through the Troposphere?
It's "true"!
Unfortunately they were totally poisonous.
Some odd people have said
(I have no idea why)
that Alice and the Caterpillar,
a mushroom aficionado, as you know,
could somehow spot them from Wonderland
and that they and everyone in that place
who watched those Enokis grow
instantly turned stone cold sober
and sane
and the 19th century, like its weapons
and whimsy and gentility,
seemed very quaint
indeed.
No fun.

Still being a downer, huh?
Well, another thing
or rather another someone
to consider
this time of year
is Mother Ceres,
who I'm telling you right now
is reclining lumpily on an Adirondack chair
and gazing sullenly at the shimmering Kaatskills
while sipping a Long Island Iced Tea
(wait, where are we?).
The brittle, wilting awns of her wheat crown
nearly obscure her puffy red eyes
irritated by the perspiration
dampening her cheeks...
but of course it's not that;
she's really a bit weepy
thinking of and missing
her daughter Persephone
who'd rather spend her last
few summer days
sipping Vin Mariani,
finishing her trashy beach reads
and regaling her classmates
from the, oh, let's call it...
"The Arcadia Young Women's
Finishing School for Girls"
with stories of her and Hades'
tawdry sex life.
*sigh*
What's a mother to do?
She needs some cheering up.
Sayyy, I've an idea!
Anybody who's still here
sit in your armchairs
if you haven't already 
or if you haven't got those
a recliner (which can be different from an armchair),
a computer chair (most likely where you are now),
a footstool (meh!),
a BDSM chair (the safe word is "Rosicrucian")
or whatever you've got
and let's pretend to have a nice big
end-of-summer picnic
(you can bring any imaginary food you want)
in oh, let's say, the Adirondacks!
(oui, Kaycie?)
and invite Ceres and Clio
and even Persephone
(if she's sober/not high and not tootoo chatty)
and all the historians
who have pictures on Clio's desk
and *sigh* I guess that also includes
good ol' Henry Ford, too.
(Sorry, Clio.)
But wait, it's okay!
We can just give him bad directions
so he'll end up at *snicker*
the Poconos!!
MWAA-HA-HA!!

Dejeuner dans les montagnes.
Luncheon in the mountains.

Try not to consider all the leaves
ready to switch their colors
or the heat morphing
from tickling cool to gnawing cold.
You'll find anon, I think,
some appreciation for it.
I do.
It all goes around
and swings back anyway,
as you know.

Got drinks?
Raise 'em high!
For health
and happiness
and all four
of our wonderfully crazy seasons.

Through the years
we all...ought to be
together.

Even thru the tragic density,
the solstitial finality felt
in Number 8.

Salud!


DB/8.2018


Hope you all had a great summer! Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!