Two Octets (Hawthorne Blvd)

hawthorne blvd octet #2


on the one hand, the row of locked orange bikes;
on the other, the cherry’s burnt orange leaves—

black metal tables & chairs under a black
& gray awning; streetlight’s yellow sheen although

noon’s scarcely past—the bus across the river
kneels, drives on; a mattress in plastic leaning

against a stucco wall; in pebbles outside
a brick building, the tiger lily’s asleep


◦    ◦    ◦


hawthorne blvd octet #3


mei-kyo’s frayed pink petals next to pallets
in that unstable improbably blue stack—

beside the crêperie food truck lavender's
bloom is mostly past as clouds sail slantwise east—

black purse rests on a picnic table under
the red umbrella’s stiff blossom as pigeons

take gray flight to the power pole; the stoplight
turns green as the sky opens blue above the birch



Jack Hayes
© 2016




11/9/16