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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Summer Malaise

I leaped into summer!
I wanted the sun.
The stroke of heat.
The clear leaded glass of the sky.
Summer with a thin shirt.
Shoes stained green by grass.
Lassitude of the hot afternoons.
Everywhere wide open doors.
Windows up.
Night a sultry sex.
The damp shadows
hovering in open caves
under the trees.

I can’t sing enough of my villa
on the shore of blue sky,
puffy clouds,
diffident haze in the afternoon.
Then the dampening of heat,
humidity,
a glass of ice.
Intoxication of the senses.
Remorse to wake.
A pornographic image of
snow outside.
Sweat under the arms.
Mosquito bites,
then longing to walk in
the cool air.

Summer, a dog with long tail
wanting me to pet it
once too often.
Go away, I sighed.
I am depressed.
Bored.
Overcome with malaise.
An hour too long in bed.
A longing for autumn
and something warm,
a cup of tea in hand,
affair with summer over.

Published inIndex of all Poems