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Casual Poetry Drop September: Strawberries & Swords

Howdy, Casual Ramblers!

It’s September & I have just one question: did you notice the temperature drop?

I was walking to my car after work, the sun was setting & the sky had turned to a lovely rosé. It was pleasant enough that my jacket felt a touch warm. That’s when a breeze passed me by & ran a shiver down my spine & I realized: autumn is here.

As someone who lives in Oregon, I am well aware that the transitional seasons love to play games of “will it, won’t it?” when it comes to actually changing from one seasonal milieu to the other. What my fellow Oregonians love to call “False Fall” for the autumn & “False Spring” for, well, you get it.

But I don’t subscribe to this, necessarily. When that first wave of changing weather hits, the die is cast. Autumn has begun, so get in the van, losers–we’re going pumpkin spicing.

For now, however, we are going to hold on to what remains of the summer (we still have two weeks left, officially) by way of some poetry I wrote in August. I didn’t write much because of writer’s block, however, I feel some of these pieces have great promise.

Enjoy!

–The Casual Rambler

A pencil drawing of three strawberries and a cluster of small flowers hanging from a green stem.

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In line while I was dying, the mean sun ever glaring, the crowds come to hide as the sweat comes riding, slick & the paint on your face comes to tearing wet this little magic at the edges, frayed a shroud come to unveiling questions as answers & riddles come to saying: Do you still believe it was ever worth believing?
Portland, Live At Pioneer Square I am deep along the trip Dancing, my eyes closed, Surrounded by multitudes Singing words to Scarlet odes Later, at the break, I am beckoned by strangers To a waving hand & a sudden, soothing sight: Her smile on swaggering hips Second set begins Or had it already been? & we are dancing Surrounded by friends we know & the multitudes we don't The sun has met hills & the bats fly overhead Flutt'ring & flitt'ring As we declare the old songs Alike Uncle John's new band That fear had been met That solitude had been matched That lyrics in life Turns the grateful loam for those Now dead & those who once live After, standing by The station, we study streets As we smoke our last Cigarettes, burning Thursday Before we head to the next...
Taroetry cards, like words, reading what pupils cannot see, taught, only in zephyrs & parfumes & moments, recalled, like dreams, told, on decks setting sail to a different sea
You don't have to write for the strawberries & you don't have to write for the swords You don't have to thumb through the journals, scribbling across the branching pages, for the words, Tending once & cutting some between the berries & some between the blades You don't have to thumb through the branches dried to brambles nor the harvests made to thorns Reaping twice & cutting double between the rusted bleeding all the same

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About The Casual Rambler

An insane man moonlighting as a respectable member of society from Portland, Oregon. A rock ‘n’ roller since his mother first spun The Police’s “Roxanne,” Ben is a lover of all things independent music. Once upon a time, a friend told him to write about music. So he started doing that under the title of a Willie Bobo cover by Santana. Now he just casually rambles about whatever crosses his mind.