Blue Steel and Sunset, 2023
I compare this morning’s cheese omelet
to last night’s sunset
both golden, laced with orange
against steel blue,
full of ingredients
necessary to hunger.
Third year of covid
twists my thoughts--
strange devices, metaphors
of many ribbons, similes that smile
like snakes in sinuous rivers.
See…I am not mad,
no, or even angry.
Play on words.
Play on, words!
I play. Words proliferate,
fill vacuum, plump with air
they fill me, I become air,
become egg and cheese,
last night’s orange-streaked
yellow and blue steel
sunset.
Coffee Break
In this world of blue skies,
waterways all shades of blue, green and brown,
we drink coffee the color of mud,
tea the color of sand.
In this world of blue skies and white clouds,
we add white sugar and white cream
to our muddy-river, sandy-dunes drinks,
consume the earth in its produce.
In this rambunctious world of crops,
prolific harvests of all colors,
we work at saving blue oceans,
massive tan sand dunes, purple mountains
from the waste products used
in our consumption of the colorful delights
that satisfy our immense thirsts
for the pretty pleasures of our giving world.
Cleo Griffith has been on the Editorial Board of Song of the San Joaquin since its inception in 2003. She has been published in Cider Press Review, Main Street Rag, Miller’s Pond, More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, POEM, and many others, most recently Wild Roof Journal, Lothlorien and Blue Collar Review.
I compare this morning’s cheese omelet
to last night’s sunset
both golden, laced with orange
against steel blue,
full of ingredients
necessary to hunger.
Third year of covid
twists my thoughts--
strange devices, metaphors
of many ribbons, similes that smile
like snakes in sinuous rivers.
See…I am not mad,
no, or even angry.
Play on words.
Play on, words!
I play. Words proliferate,
fill vacuum, plump with air
they fill me, I become air,
become egg and cheese,
last night’s orange-streaked
yellow and blue steel
sunset.
Coffee Break
In this world of blue skies,
waterways all shades of blue, green and brown,
we drink coffee the color of mud,
tea the color of sand.
In this world of blue skies and white clouds,
we add white sugar and white cream
to our muddy-river, sandy-dunes drinks,
consume the earth in its produce.
In this rambunctious world of crops,
prolific harvests of all colors,
we work at saving blue oceans,
massive tan sand dunes, purple mountains
from the waste products used
in our consumption of the colorful delights
that satisfy our immense thirsts
for the pretty pleasures of our giving world.
Cleo Griffith has been on the Editorial Board of Song of the San Joaquin since its inception in 2003. She has been published in Cider Press Review, Main Street Rag, Miller’s Pond, More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, POEM, and many others, most recently Wild Roof Journal, Lothlorien and Blue Collar Review.
