WRITE ON: Like the Fourth of July on the waterfront
LIKE THE FOURTH OF JULY ON THE WATERFRONT
KABOOM! Thunder with lightning strikes, brilliant lights
replacing darkness
Like the Fourth of July on the waterfront, waking me out of a
Sound sleep at 3 a.m.
The thunder keeps rolling as the storm slowly moves east,
Making the windows flicker like strobe lights as the lightning
Strikes by the hundreds, again and again.
I look through the blinds to see the electrical show,
Just in time to see a large flash, loud and much too near,
I pull back, instinctively, from the danger it presents
Like I was outside, instead of watching from here
With every indication the storm will never end,
I notice the volume of the thunder is slowly turning down,
And then later, it is gone, the Fourth of July on the waterfront
Is over, again
And I too, am calm and I return to bed, thankfully the storm,
Is also gone.
DENNIS C. ORVIS
Winter Haven
SUSPENSE
Cast down from its arboreal heaven,
A single, solitary leaf hangs there,
Just above the corpses of its seven
Colleagues whose crushed forms are no longer fair.
Surely the devil’s agent, a spider,
Its web has strung across a wide expanse
And in that net has caught this poor glider
Which back and forth in the breeze seems to dance.
Eternal feet away from salvation
And now only a few inches from hell,
With no hope or means of restoration,
In swinging purgatory it must dwell.
Without some miracle to set it free,
There it will rot away into debris.
ROBERT P. TUCKER
Lakeland
SUBTLE SOUTHERN SEASONAL SHIFTS
Humidity drops
Hurricanes churn
Maybe a few
Leaves may turn
Colors of gold
Or red or brown
Lying dead
Upon the ground
Traffic slows
Fruit-stands thrive
Temperatures drop
Snowbirds arrive
Subtle seasonal
Changes occur
Even my cat
Has grown more fur!
JEANNE RASCHKE
Lakeland
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This article originally appeared on The Ledger: WRITE ON
