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SHANE MCCAULEY

                                        two poems

  Fallen Leaves on Lake Chuzenji

At first as if a school of red fish

on blue pointed apices

the to-ing and fro-ing wavelets

of this almost breathing lake

 

but the trees are naked and flame

saturated leaves are writing

themselves upon the slate of water,

the sun bowing low to read:

 

kanji burnt red – an entire

season gathers here

to celebrate, and to drown.

 

 

         Jazz at the Villa Celimontana

Candles dance among the pines

as notes from a saxophone strike

the stars; a Renaissance garden

settles quietly in its practised leaves.

 

Jagged music staggers out in a roar

over quadrilles of trees, meteors

splash against the night like rain

on hot black pavement, extinguished.

 

Conceal, says the heart, what the jazz

might find: chance to cancel

what might yet heal, that love is a lie

that only the lips can feel.