Fall is here, death is here, but the flowers keep on flowering

Golden Fox, Blue Fox, Marilyn Ambrose, Boa by Frederica, New York, Harper’s Bazaar, November 1954

Photo:Lillian Bassman

    Death took Emily to religions…
              …never desired (Emily could not comprehend)

  mapping lore onto lustrous skin
         runnels release
   a lazy - drizzle
       soaking sheets
tendrils, once capricious
           …now torrid…tantalize Emily
  provoking folly

          conserved sensibilities
unanticipatedly burgeoning
    Emily visited Death’s legend
         becoming obscured in His lineslies
immersed in Death’s Garden
                         forenoon approached without signal
Emily ~ Death’s prism

     Emily crotchet’s words with lascivious ember
          ash settled in Death’s…ghost

  searing ~ cinder at Emily’s feet
                  Death (forlorn yet fortified)
as it pleases

             Emily attempts to douse hunger
  sweat from brow
words beckoning ~ Death attends……….
                Emily appreciates Him
    her prism

  Emily understands He requires
         ….gluttony this dusk
yearn for me!! Emily screams
                                        ~ from cavernous sanctuary
    succumb - over and over

unholy mouth

    venom spewed and spit
slighting the knowledge of the saintly
           to good souls
  placing hellacious statements 
on your palette

unholy heart

          feelings strewn and scattered
playing hide and seek with disavowed
        disenchanted souls
  filling essence with hope
in their dreams

 treasure…hand-me-down words
        cadence 
   i was tortured ~ passably
soused
………..enough
             i used to          exploit
   adequately
and write - words would…ebb
    like the rotgut
the poisons
         and i padlocked…perception
    to witness words

unlearned

   remembering how to be able to quarrel
          my passion managed to ~ kindle
aflame with adoration       cauterized 
   remnants of where she - endured
………….smoldering

              i could compose, you recognize 
    ere
      before hooch, before gigolo
despondency
             the astringent torrent
  tumbling from your eyes
       before
               ~ your cries

   epoch’s…. enveloping edict like albatross neck
     asphyxiate life from lung
surrender rhyme ~ with quake cracking ribcages
…..leaving you spent upon the stage
                             yet
   craving supplements 
         bones exposed from the coercion 
         cells and sinew ~ mangled
blood smatterings scattered

         was a poet…when i bled

Emily wrote words about Death
    …about Dolly
     about love transcending
 starlight above her head

            Emily authored quarrels to Death
to susan
               and ambience overwhelms
  is she able to endure anything…at all?
Emily crafted disputes
     about 
             the gratification ~ the torment
that an undeniable lustbear

Emily formulated legends

           of by-and-by

Emily’s Nemophile

dense fog squats

             covering sod…and sprig

   heavy white-grey swirls

rest upon Susan’s skin

      like lust

                    ~ quieting footfalls

cotton

      Susan was cloaked

  yet…Emily found her

nonetheless

  Emily’s nemophile

               - woodland reverie

    a feather falls from branch
        hope flutters 

Emily wants to accomplish…something
           for someone
   -at least once in her time 

     during this time of war, strife
words are Emily’s healing
         ~as Susan drifts to brothers bed

   Death is bored, as war wagesrages
         …galloping wisps carry from battlefield
    -to battlefield                       seeking advice 

          Emily inspired little things on little….scraps
   Susan.       Death.          birds.          love.  

lured within a barricade of…words
       encompassing herself ~ lustrous sonnets 
  glissading cascade
                                  afflicted throat
- deliberately, Emily

           Death’s punctuation departs Emily’s…shell
drizzling to the capricious terrain
   earth ~ sodden
            a fire within - stokes
 Emily tarries
         ache becoming too much to disclose
Emily’s upheaval                   
                                             complete

                       spewing doggerel
     Emily sighsdies