Bacchus Backyard

The vineyards blanketing the shadowed slopes

span across the near horizon

Solemn in mourning lilac

Steam rose from out of the spires
and out of wooden crosses,

The sun masked itself 

in a shy white haze

that climbed through all 

betweens and up over 

the narrow rows, hurdles crosses

an angel in the cemetery
lands
the feet feel home

The wine is red, the blood is fresh

and tears dew

nourish the vine. 


Painting by Caravaggio [Public domain], Young sick Bacchus (1593) via Wikimedia Commons.

Smoke break

Smoldering smoke stacks from the monsters house
lie dormant and unmoved 

by the coastal swells
salt-water-air-swirls and slaps hand-to-hand
standing stoic and ionic.

Meanwhile July seethes
and pores drink up

like lungs,
exchanging into why
wait-Take in a deep drag
of volcanic Venus vapor,
letting off summer steam
the kettle screams black sky.




Image by Alfred T. Palmer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.