Samhain

 

A chiaroscuro 

of charcoal clouds

masses in the East

to mob the morning sun

and blunt its light.

Sensing that Persephone

has packed her bags,

senescent leaves

fall like ancient Rome,  

to reveal an empty nest.

Squirrels scurry 

along bare branches,

stashing their cache

of burnished chestnuts 

to guard against 

the coming dearth.

While Earth exhales,

and nights draw in,

mellow pumpkins grin

beneath a harvest moonrise,

their fire-bright eyes 

watch as the world grows thin.

John Walter Taylor

© All rights reserved

27 March 2025

The Age of Enlightenment

 

On a quiet stroll

down a leaf-dark lane,

I met a young man

who was me.

He had been meandering dreamily,

and sleepwalking through the weeks,

long before the shock 

of life’s alarm clock 

awakened him 

to the glare of awareness

and the certainty

that his letters to the North Pole

would never be answered.

John Walter Taylor

© All rights reserved

18 March 2025

MALUM

 

Adam. 

Made in the image,

like the movie set of a Wild West town.

A cheap knock-off,

imported from the Middle East

without a warning label,

which proved to be the apple

that spoiled the barrel.

An expelled patient zero,

a walking Wuhan lab of viral sin,

which waits to blight all newborn.

Goddess of the Woods!

You, who never left the Garden,

protect us from his toxic strain,

whose arrogance gives licence

to the axemen

who fell your sacred groves,

and watch the hamadryads die.

John Walter Taylor

© All rights reserved

12 March 2025