A summer poem? Could be ... but it could be an anytime poem, because the "monster" is always there ... has been, ever since I installed it.
But simmer - er, summer, it is. At least in today's poem.
Oh, how many times this has happened to me ... I settle into my favorite chair, pick up a book ... or a magazine ... and lean back.
Next thing I know, I'm waking up again.
But this time, at least, I got a poem out of it:
CEILING MONSTER
Five blades embrace
heavy summer air
while four globes stare
at a pair of strings,
slender, descending
like spiders seeking
new worlds to claim,
and my eyelids flutter,
fighting against sleep,
for I have sat down
intending only to read
a few paragraphs,
but find I'm slipping
now, glasses off, my book
slowly rising, falling
as it rests on my chest,
both of us helpless
against that monster
cooling, whirring,
soothing, hypnotizing
us in the afternoon.
© 1998
(originally published in Capper's)
Today's word: hypnotizing
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