#short meter

[rudysassafras]

C o m i d a

I’ve never known a peach

That tasted quite as good

As that which through a fuzzy breach

Was sweet and ripened food

A feast for every sense

For smell, for skin, for taste

A sight and sound that can’t be rinsed

Unhurried yet in haste

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

[rudysassafras]

Ruminant

A poem’s just some words

Like shirts are just some threads

You weave them like a shepherd herds

His flock through grassy beds

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

Epitaph

If spider webs are natural

Like bird and hornet nests

Then so too is suburbia

The streets where forests rest

…in peace

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

M e c c a

I’d walk for endless mile

For you, my love to show

I’d walk from Staten Island to

The coast of Mendocino

The pilgrimage to Mecca is

A slow and holy saunter

The roads are paved by weary feet

Devoutly do they haunt her

No summit could extinguish

The flame that’s lit within

I’d hike from Springer Mountain to

The peak of Katahdin

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

M a t h s

Two and three make six

That’s if they’re multiplied

For otherwise, the sum of it’s

How two and three make five

And you and I are two

The distance sets the sum

For otherwise the product is

How you and I make one

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

Miles From Somewhere

A quarter mile away

Thirteen-twenty feet

I hear the train a’rumbling

Beneath the city street

It blends with the cicadas

An early harmony

Reminds me of my childhood

What is my destiny?

If I was child now

To greet my company

I wonder would I recognize

Myself or would I flee?

—rudysassafras

[rudysassafras]

L a s c i v i o u s

There is a dying breath

Upon the window pane;

There’s nothing I’ve to fear from death

Except that which remains.

The condensation fades,

Reveals the sultry Spring;

It’s been a year since I have made

The child in me sing.

Let’s drink, my one, this wine,

And we’ll get drunk tonight;

Your freckled skin, like stars will shine

We’ll sail ‘neath wayward light.

—rudysassafras