Two Octets (Grand Ave & Multnomah St)

grand ave octet


grimy blue shirt wrapped around a sweet gum’s trunk;
foliage curling in a tattered circle—

storm cloud escalates west above Koin Tower,
nimbus glare envelopes layers gray as fish—

lime green streetcar accelerates past this
leaf shower; no one notices one touching

down next to my sneaker, one caressing the
crook of my arm: you really should have seen it!


◦    ◦    ◦


multnomah st octet

tight crabapple clusters against a white sky;
omnipresent crow on a soaring light pole

as if you were watching; the line of hornbeams
bare upright limbs, each sprouting a fern from rough

bark—there’s no other response; pansies’ sad dark
faces droop as if in thought, reflect the self

in one sense; speckled roses shrink on tall stalks:
if you would stand in that dormer you’d see them



Jack Hayes
© 2016


11/9/16 & 11/12/16