Tuesday, November 17, 2015

James Robert Rudolph- Three Poems


A Treacherous Season

Rolling November clouds, bullying
in those cold whites and grays,
a bitter, old nurse, heartless,
bringing misery every time.

Never a greeting without a cutting remark,
the sun shines brightest on the coldest days,
winter can never be trusted,
like a creepy, passed around uncle
come for a stay, lingering too long
outside your door at bedtime.

A sheet covering the freshly dead,
snow drops,
snuffing out light, voices, movement,
all life corked up in an airless bottle.
Reds, yellows, greens,
now distant as a memory from childhood,
I am locked in a black and white freeze frame,
this flat, dumb space
stops me dead in my tracks.

Winter made the Donner party eat its own,
it made them do the awfulest thing.
In a lacy, delicate disguise
it comes so dangerously,
a soft and silent snowfall, or
a child’s sweet paper cut outs.
Winter is a bride hiding a knife 
in the folds of her wedding dress.



Land of Just So

Fussy baby sputters,
frustration fizzing on his face.
Fat clonic arms 
chopping the air 
like a band leader.
Legs squirmy, kicking out.

Pouty little emperor,
wooly cap too scratchy
rattle out of reach
tragic cutting tooth.
Stop the world until
it’s fixed, I say.



A Life Paled

The skin of my life
is pallid the color
of clotting cream I
am unsunned.

Ant auntie with hairy legs
I stroke the queen’s eggs
little blind Amazon I
coax in catacombs.

Drone and marm my
range is narrow a
parochial I fade as
I gray draining into
the sink the wash of 
white midday light.
 
 

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