Gerry Boyd

When the Sun Arcs Low at Dawn

cherry pie scales of coloratura scent drift lightly

white across gleaming uplifted patinas of sound

and rhythm cannot exit so quickly across deer

skin stretched taut against pale December skies

of cirrus and crystal ice that brush near heaven

with vertebrae scales sky stiff frozen high in azure

canvases chiaroscuro field and ground blanched

to spin a colorless globe with blue focus glowing

on Ionic foothills whose spiny bones revel under

the leafless supplication of grey trees that reach

for a god that is half-moon hidden behind fiction

that arises in bored parchment dried to reaching

so far too far when the sun arcs low at dawn

Gerry Boyd lives in New Jersey and enjoys 'messing around with words'.

Gerry Boyd

every spectrum contains a circle

i. it started near the garden of almost blooming

the pale blue shadow of a predictable leaf of graph

dripped behind the green sun of a fuschia terrace

on an afternoon filled with the geometric curve of insteps:

easy wide to eyeball this, from the sigh gasp calves

to the scarlet thrust of glamour toes in beige sandals.

this was the craving summer of grimy gnat filled screens

and curved lines that infuriated the crispness of Euclid.

and what was simply advertised as a failure of the will

became a rainbow of coincidence hidden in erupting leaves.

ii. after mid-summer the seasons start to change

the shadows of mimosa buds, having lost their scent,

form black comedic masks on the rain rusted siding.

we could smell the orange winds of autumn

hiding beneath the humid hems of summer

and the silver underside of weigelia leaves

that warned of scripted trysts unplanned.

a silver key balanced on the black mold,

unblenched, of the rocking chair armrest-

the chair painted in dramatic flowers

by the arm of a child expressing thanks:

this key could not open the painted doors

that lavishly barked the entrance to the garden-

it was a path we could not take.

iii. there are many ways to rectify the forgotten

in a dehydrated attempt to wetly articulate

the saved yellow globules of nostalgic desire,

the cancelled postage devoid of cellulose hinges:

deference is due to the wrappers of seed,

but only when the set of lavender ribbons

is proportional and, oddly, ironically demure.

there was the pitiless sun, not precisely prodigal,

that arced across peninsulas of the proverbial burning sand.

wait, she said, the waves are passing the bow

and the island is too distant.

iv. do not be disappointed by the refactoring of your bedclothes

in a windy foyer filled with antique chimes

and dead replications of the already dead,

do not sniff expectantly for a blowing wind

in this brown and barren alley of moldy must:

we cannot wipe away the chanting of the lost-

we can only hope to find someone who touches us

the way we touch ourselves.

Gerry Boyd

the rapture never comes too late

the seductive regret of scarlet lipstick late applied

is easily erased by the chartreuse ferns of a feathery dawn

and a woody prayer of silver moss that is perfect in its worship:

when your flowered skirt is breathlessly lifted

over the variegated heaven of your musky thighs,

ah! there the firm blossom issues, and causes us to climb-

baptized so surely with a rainy spring of hidden desire,

this precious bulb so long buried, in a fashionable arcade,

by the distracting drifts of bleak chatter and snowy bores

has burst through the dam that was always too weak to hold it.

so ecstatic to take the waters, in the roaring way of alpine cures,

from the holy torrents, once reserved, for stark liturgical glaciers:

in the graying cloud of snow melt, an edelweiss has blossomed,

delicious, at the summit, in its white and dusky innocence.

Gerry Boyd

murmurs from a perfect afternoon

i. drifting into that hermetic seal

the picket fence stands proudly unwashed

in the three trunk hemlock afternoon:

it is all held together by wispy cables

and the dreamy embroidery of soapy eyelets-

those painted threads of yellow, green, and rust

that are all inside a glassed-washed afternoon:

the clearing fog of then and now and when.

a tempting little drip will propel the suspect elders

to wander into the white promise of the warping slats.

ii. the trifurcation is an amusement that briefly matters

she dances in the chartreuse lemon spring,

is the green summer of our frothing joy-

she flutters again in orange leaves,

that, saintly, burst and burn in autumn:

ironic words of appreciation always seem to fail

in a way that is pervasive and, oddly, geometric

on the tear-stained Appian Way of patio pavers:

there are many things that cease to matter

in the Euclidian formulae of wind-swept leaves.

yet, we try, and try again, to simply find the point.

iii. back to the idle rust of dropping cones

each shadowy dot of near and distant leaves

is bartered by the tricky once-washed slats,

traded for a moment that waves good-bye, well met:

saplings proudly foil the coniferous quivering-

the compost can, always, existentially blue,

a calming retreat from the obscenity of now

that is telegraphed by this obstinate relic-

boasting of a clarity almost reached

if, indeed, it was reachable at all.

the rest just freezes,

impotent in the set of choices and meanings-

what is the course beyond the fence?

through the unwashed slats there is only:

the soothing green of the distance mown,

the windy rhythm of dappled seed,

the promise of pale berries, lush and sown.

Gerry Boyd

What the Mocking Bird Said It's Just a Little

Some time after that season of keening rain

blanched the bleached slats of blue-gray siding,

the gutter's low scrub bloomed shortly once-

just before the blocked and frosted jalousies

shuttered the lime-streaked porch for life.

Inside the nod of flowers drifted away

drowning out pool filter chlorine whines

behind dapples on dry buttery siding

where once the rain had flowed in sheets

over a withering brown oak's low branches

and vibrant figs coaxed from depleted earth.

A table plated with unfinished eggs gives

a circus of coffee aged evidence of lift

in a place where nothing uplifting is left:

no mouth in the greasy skillet entices ears

with a low sizzle that has long since passed

into a torn curtain obscurring cloudy skies,

ripples form on the pocked aluminium shore

of lidless guardian service with steamy

gradients of starch under the striped rose

hanging a shadow over the newsprint news.

Puckered lilies would rather smooch the moon

than greet the apricot rise of morning stalled

long since a quartered acre of silence arose,

arose for a sun that only after stabs next door

and only after an early breeze shakes uneven rain

from other sun-drenched leaves of maple.

Gerry Boyd

it's such a blue thrill to split the sky

i. the fair weather that grew into a silky redemption

our gate into the moss that day

was trilled in a perfect coloratura,

demising at thrill the bark target

that was grilled by rusty willows-

pink but secretly unmentioned:

the munificent weeping of impatiens

in a necessary press towards bloom

as to my blush became the saintly dew.

you might call it paradise,

I call it something more.

ii. every evolution has a modicum of unfortunate offshoots

then came a calligraphy shorn of boredom that never faded:

our foundry unspoiled and grave where carved tablets lounged

in a soothing sienna mud that reeked of bubbling, spiky abuse.

I was so high I could see the planets.

iii. it only sounds like growling when I mean it.

there was something barking a gray language of granite oppression,

a voice that dragged with sisal ropes across the canine floor

and tore into the seductive sway of elms and oaks and maples:

it had the darkening violence of an unexpected autumn storm-

I had only expected leaves.

iv. the circle is sometimes announced by the chimes of innocence

twigs were hurled until our nostrils reeked of blood-

times were so much different when the sun arced low

and a horrified pack of shills went monkey, totally:

for a split dream moment the falcon aspired

under gray flurries that huddled with the Valkyries-

to wait for the freeze is, often, to be frozen still:

I still yearn for that sky-blue pop.