Two Poems
by: Ashley Halm
“Ode to Lemons” (after Sam Steiner)
I want to use the best words in the dictionary
Paint this huge world as I see it in you
You are orange juice sunset drenched skyscrapers
Sunned meadow grass trampled by bare feet
You are dryer fresh wolf wool sweaters
Bricks through stained windows of rainbow saints
Steam from fawn colored cinnamon clove tea
Sunflower chocolate cedar birdcage amber ivy summer
Blue blue blue sky ocean indigo sky
You are pine needle perfume church pews
Gilded pulpit leather bound pages splayed wide
You are rain soaked shirts sun drying
Careless earnest wasteful wedding vow arguments
Fiery cardinals shotgunning through January snow storm
Aloe skin honeysuckle briar bridge lavender vessel
Blue blue blue sky violet berry sky
I want to use the best words I know I’m
Cursing my ignorance of new ways to say cherish you
Blue sky you
“Ode to Rothko” (after Walt Whitman)
Where you saw the seasoned artist,
Where the powders, the canvases are strewn in stacks behind him,
Where you were given the brushes and frames, to stretch, clean and assemble them,
Where you standing saw the painter, how he ranted to little success in the studio,
So late suddenly you grew angry and raw,
Till sinking and crawling in you curled up into yourself,
In the quiet cold morning-light, then once in a while,
Reached out in frail surrender to the colors.
by: Ashley Halm
“Ode to Lemons” (after Sam Steiner)
I want to use the best words in the dictionary
Paint this huge world as I see it in you
You are orange juice sunset drenched skyscrapers
Sunned meadow grass trampled by bare feet
You are dryer fresh wolf wool sweaters
Bricks through stained windows of rainbow saints
Steam from fawn colored cinnamon clove tea
Sunflower chocolate cedar birdcage amber ivy summer
Blue blue blue sky ocean indigo sky
You are pine needle perfume church pews
Gilded pulpit leather bound pages splayed wide
You are rain soaked shirts sun drying
Careless earnest wasteful wedding vow arguments
Fiery cardinals shotgunning through January snow storm
Aloe skin honeysuckle briar bridge lavender vessel
Blue blue blue sky violet berry sky
I want to use the best words I know I’m
Cursing my ignorance of new ways to say cherish you
Blue sky you
“Ode to Rothko” (after Walt Whitman)
Where you saw the seasoned artist,
Where the powders, the canvases are strewn in stacks behind him,
Where you were given the brushes and frames, to stretch, clean and assemble them,
Where you standing saw the painter, how he ranted to little success in the studio,
So late suddenly you grew angry and raw,
Till sinking and crawling in you curled up into yourself,
In the quiet cold morning-light, then once in a while,
Reached out in frail surrender to the colors.