Come South Time Poem by Jay Mandeville

the mountain enters the house
through a maize ear.
the river brings back planters' soil.
blue night shimmers with heat
and minerals, and looks you in the eye.
oleanders reach dread heights each step.
red flags are unjustly disposed in the garden.
snapdragons ride whispers,
and lamps adjust ancestral portraits.

gently flows the frail myth of tuberculosis.
gentlemanly chauffeurs drink against
the leather.
shrubs kneel on the genteel sidewalks.
twin sisters breed an hysterical amnesia.
devils, bits of light, nibble the air.
like everybody, trained observers
see shadows.
the slip-away yell of arachnids come south time...