Sweet Summertime

This is a hastily-written, spur-of-the-moment, subject-dying-for-attention piece; I went downstairs for a minute, ate a snack, came back up, and typed. Truth: I didn't intend for it be so creepy at the first, but I kind of like the way it ended up: a juxtaposition of light and dark, the malicious vs. the innocent. I'm keeping it, even if it is faintly twisted and slightly off-kilter.
I suppose, subconsciously, I'm also thinking about the way appearances can be so misleading, so deceptive, so...apparent! It's wrong and rude to make snap judgments and then to close our minds to a different truth than one we may have fabricated (not first impressions; those aren't voluntary, and we can't help them. We can only help what we do with them.); recognizing and overcoming that tendency is something with which I have struggled for a long time.
So now. Enough petty preaching: here instead is my paltry attempt at poetry, 'Ode to Summer.'


Deep, dark, red stains on a surface
In sharp contrast white and pristine.
For what this sacrifice? Spilled life juices
Are oozing, pooling, running from the scene.
Sharp and gleaming, sinisterly silver,
A tainted knife is lying nearby
Its teeth are full of bits of once living
Flesh now still; how happened this crime?
There are no lookers-on right now;
The place is silent and dead.
Witnesses seem to be few or none—
Or perhaps they’ve merely fled.
Now a finger, brown and smooth with sun
Dips down to stem the trickling tide
Now bathes itself in a few drops of the blood
Lifts it to crimson-colored lips, which sigh…


Strawberries, oh, strawberries.
How delicious, delectable, divine are these.
Tickling, teasing, terrorizing tart
A sun-kissed fruit shaped as a heart.


Bite-size bits of bon, berry bliss,
All cold winter long their sweet squelch we miss
The first warm days of spring herald this:
Strawberries will soon be ripe to be picked.


Festivals and carnivals, gay galas and fairs,
We seize a chance to celebrate these treats too often rare.
We bake them into pies and cakes; they occupy our culinary dreams;
They rest in downy shortbread cups, and drown in fresh whipped cream.
They create, as a garnish on a salad,
A new joie de vivre for the palate.
They are simply irresistible, the fiends,
When bathed in melted chocolate streams.


Sharp, succulent, sloppy little burst,
We thank you for your sweet sugars,
Surprising and sour, the evidence of your life,
We eat you by the peck; you are a delight.
You smell of green summer and hot sun and fresh air;
We crave your scent, pine for you everywhere.
We love your cool juices, refreshing and dark,
We never could hate you for leaving your mark
For staining our fingers and
On lips and tongues lingering
Oh, enticing strawberry,
You make our hearts want to sing!


On the slab of white, a dark, red stain;
But no crime was committed; no one left in pain.
It’s only a squirt of fresh strawberry juice
Funneling down to the hungry sink drain,
A delicious reminder, a last crimson view,
One final splash of summery, sweet, scarlet rain.