Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 8 98 HOME PORT Four Seasonal Poems by Frank Finale Frank Finale is the author of the coffee table books "To The Shore Once More, Volumes I - III" and "A Gull's Story, Parts 1 - 3." He is also coeditor of the anthologies "Under A Gull's Wing" and "The Poets of New Jersey." Mr. Finale will be giving readings, meeting readers, and signing books at events this season. Please refer to pages 91 - 99 as well as www.jerseyshorebooks.com for more information about his books and appearances. All Hallow's Eve Scorpio waits in horoscape for demons, goblins. Fill the bags before Jack snaps summer's apples into winter and all the leaves witch it from bones of trees. Scarecrows, werewolves. Quick. The dead do not forget us. This night smells of candle wax and smoke. There is more than winter chill in the air. Listen to the wind in the elms. A thin melody skeletons the shadows. Light the bonfire to remind us of sun. Watch carefully the cold, stone shoulders of the graveyard. Someone wants to dance. Scorpio hooks its starry tail into the hallowed dark. The Firs I saw the firs, uprooted, spidery from earth, their roots still dark with a life brought to surface, and how silent with secrets, stoic to seasons and evergreen beyond the push of death. Under the moon's counterfeit light, I envisioned man in machines bulldoze the life out of earth. I saw him spawn his stores that did not breathe and had no roots. When night, I'd cup my ear to floor, hear the growth that stretched the dark and feel the crack of concrete. At Christmas, firs come to haunt us. Before Bed wind swirls snow around lamplight stars like van Gogh. Snow bandages bare elms black blooded boulevards; a celebration a non-existent parade where joy crystallizes in a child's eyes who praising kneels at the yellow lighted dormer window. From The Corner this pine, ten-thousand sharps high, evergreen to its point, needles the air electric—elves, reindeer, tinsel forever falling between branches all under the ceiling star. You stare at light— forest of Bethlehem blue, thorn-wound red, North Pole white, a noel of needles shadowing floor. Breathing the ginny nearness of its trunk, the scent of all your Christmases rushes warm before you.

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