October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
Black horses, bronze sunsets and crystal mountains: fields of corn: clouds catching all the light of tonight’s moon: birds with golden throat: clusters of kindly and memorable sycamores: wild cherries, wild roses and cranberries: lemons: weeping willows over honeysuckles: monarch butterflies and milkweed pods: cougars, bobcats and panthers: iris, dandelions, rhubarb: waterfalls, pools, moss: ivy and rosehips, gusts, breezes and thunderstorms: the honeybee and the hummingbird: seacoasts: peaches, pears, pomegranates: grottoes, canyons and mesas: oranges, limes, plums, dates, strawberries: fir trees, maple trees, apple trees: goldfish and swordfish: falcons and parrots, chestnuts and walnuts: almonds, Brazil nuts and hazel nuts.
October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
The dark spirit of gladness is her mirror in a garden of thoughtful dreams tonight. These are her petals brought from rivers of song. The river of everyone is the river of song. After a devotion to her I release my heart to her. My sunlight is released. Her mirror is painted with the hard colors of cherished maples. She steps before me, smeared lightning. If it is energy rising from her, it is the soft poems that shall follow her quietly. Dear dream after dear dream from her and we know it is a crystalline Sunday royal from rhyme.
October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
This is something for you to remember from The Book of Shanda. I feel that I am aware of it whenever lovely wind is blowing on her, whenever the stars are shining over her, and there are millions of stars, honied stars. Summer shall warm her and the winter enrage. How easily you shall remember these words written in The Book of Shanda and take them to heart. I am aware of it when night falls upon her, and words for this are engraved in the silver book. I know that mysterious landscape where moonlight finds her sparkling darkness away.
October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
Many rainbows of fire, many bursts against the slate of the night sky. Bursts within bursts. How can you describe fourteen balls of white flame pouring upward into the night one after another? Painting in the sky. Bursts of gold turning blue. Pieces of red fire holding in the air minute after minute without moving. Red, green, blue, yellow, white flecks all at once. Lasting and expiring flowers made of long gold flames. Hilarious carnations stamped upon space. A high trellis decorated by elusive spangles. Loud charges going off, the whole heavens a fireplace. Decimated cold cherries, a night network.
October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
The cold lace dress with four pearl buttons, a tapestry of snow, a gentle sash, frills under the chin. She seems to be covered with layers of lace, wrapped in deep drifts and piles of lace, with a corsage on her wrist. The dress is patterned with a whole book of different flowers, shy flowers tucked in around her sleeves and waist. Betty Crocker never made a better cake than her ivory creation made for twirling tonight, perfectly made to veil such a beautiful girl who may twirl or curtsey and not show the knee. She bows like frosted cake.
October 2000 | poetry, William B. Hunt
I don’t know if I would be a very wise person if I tried to describe to you a girl I met named Schaelina Valarian. I suspect her of things, of witchcraft and terrible cooking. She has almost convinced me to accept that torchlight of her smile, haven’t you, Valarian? But she will break free and run if you try to start thinking that she is a nice person. She is made of snips and snails and sugar and spice. I don’t write poems about the dead! I write poems about living people, praising the sweet lightning striking in them.
