Steven
Stone lives and writes in Orlando Florida. He spent time growing up in
New York. That’s why his voice is so familiar! This poem, with its
clipped phrases, evokes warm images of summer, but imparts a feeling of
foreboding at the same time.

Exercise
By Steven Stone

The word bucolic
Was meant for this.
As only words can
say, can do. But a
clear picture. Clean as
day. The omelet in the
sky. Announces you.
It’s hot as a clambake
from the clam’s perspective;
mosquitoes skim along the
grass. It is July. We shoot
off everything, our dreams.
This lazy week. A noise
so faint. The wheat in the
fields. The smell of fresh
paint. Soon the maples.
Old wooden fences. Always
shadows. Grey, black, purple.
Cloudless. Go for the shade.
Instinctively. Open the parlor doors.
Shadows, like thoughts.
Lengthen. Twilight in
mid-afternoon. Sleep is still
the hardest thing to do. In
dreams sometimes, my sleep
becomes a death. My death
ship. Simmering. Jim Morrison
on the radio. It is 1971 again.
He is dead. The music grinds
on. Hope and hindrance. Fire
brigades. Summer clutches,
summer squeezes. Rain on the
cool soil. It is any year you want.
Quiet as unkissed lips.
Mountains lie back on their
haunches. Blindly I wave at
a fly. Soon it will be supper.
We will be enfolded. Push the
envelope backwards. Our day of
dubious grace.