Guileful October

      - written on this day of the partial solar eclipse, when I am down with the flu - 


a cold, 
a splitting headache,
and the blinding sun

      burning up with a fever of its own
      rushed between late risings and early twilights
      drilling into my skull as if to make up for lost time
		        as if to bleach my memory of yesterday’s darkness
		        and the darkness of the day before
      parching the leaves and the papers, erasing
                        the signs written on them 
		        all those signs of absence – now blotted out by its remorseless glow
      incensed, unbearable, looming
      turning – once more – the musty, reedy marshes to strangling dry soot
      excreting its cum of cruel desire – 
                        hot, flaming embers of hope

as it empties its golden glare onto the world,
as it dumps its haughty heat on your skin,
as it pounds the barren boughs with ochre statements of crackling neglect.