Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Three Independence Day Octets


Independence Day Octet #1
(7/4/17)

late morning when the blinds open, a bird sings
somewhere beyond white parked cars—we haven’t been

introduced—there’s sunlight of course, a ghostly
butterfly to the east, but not the Far East;

we were looking at new colors for Lenten
roses—they were bocce balls on a west coast

lawn somewhere between Rockaway’s broken sand
dollar & Golden Gate Park’s calla lilies


                      


Independence Day Octet #2
(7/4/17)

in the Renaissance they knew the soul is black,
the opposite of that souvenir baseball,

the one come to rest against my father’s watch;
afternoon’s firecrackers snap like banjo

strings bursting through a Marshall amp, the one lugged
up Burnside by the guy in black; a sky blue

heart drawn in sidewalk chalk, centered on the crack,
the one where I’m trying to find my mother


                      


Independence Day Octet #3
(7/4/17)

a harmonica chord—let’s say C major—
morphs into the sound of a baby crying;

the sun, like the rest of us, is headed west,
the sky with its intentions both good & blue,

is otherwise empty unlike that front porch
piled with dried sunflowers; they make no sound

unlike that hammer against shingles or that
harmonica reverting to single notes



Jack Hayes
© 2017

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