Summer Title Challenge - Entries

OK, to make it a little easier to see the pieces I've started this thread for the pieces only. Please make your guesses/comments in the original thread.

Once again, the poets are:

AlwaysHungry
Angeline
Butters
Champagne
EllenMore
GreenMountaineer
HarryHill
Magnetron
Pelegrino
Remec
StlGoddessFreya
Todski
UnderYourSpell

Stc #1

The Door Into Summer

We swept out the rushes
off the cobbled floor
and shook off the tapestries
to send winter out the door.

But spring brought rain and mud,
runny noses, and even more
cold and damp, so still we swept
more winter out the door.

With all the suddenness of birth,
the changes shook me to the core.
I felt the warmth of sunshine
pushing winter out the door.

Into summer the chill bled away,
and stripped off the bleak I wore,
bringing warmth and fresh growth, now
there's no room for winter at the door.

Stc #2

The Door Into Summer

You never made it easy, Robert,
but you always made it fun
walking on the moon with a menace from Earth
or with a Lummox in an Iowa cornfield

I walked the glory road with you
fought dragons and blood kites
pulled the raw red gold from the gizzard
of the creature under mile high falls

You took my far beyond this planet
in fictional and spiritual ways
colored my dreams with hero's
and my thoughts with 'what if?'

Stc #3

The Door Into Summer

Fairer than the sun to look at,
We were told in the Eddas,
Each new voice wrapping its own wire
Around a true runestone brought over the seas.
A talisman of the way the world is when human eyes aren't seeing it.

Stone churches sprouted like mushrooms
Along the steep cuts of the fjords,
Mountains overhanging, gone riot with berry brambles
And the snowmelt waterfalls draping down
Like summer's own hair.
They taught us to call them angels.
At least they were right about their faces being only light behind their wings
And their swords that dripped flames .

Fair Folk,
Seelie and silly became the same word
In stories about goodwives remembering to leave out bowls of cream
And travelers waking to shining processions,
Of lovers separated in fog-wrapped woods
Caressing elm bark like they did thighs
And pursing their lips to kiss water caught in holly leaves.
How easily we forgot that we had appeased them once with fire.

Now it's a note at the end of the morning news,
An amusement to savor with the last three sips of coffee
That we move roads around their rocks
And build them houses in our gardens.
Our daughters run around with cartoon ingenues in leaf skirts
Stamped across their backpacks
And glitter-sprayed pantyhose stretched over unbent coat-hangers
Dragging through the air behind them .
How easily we forgot that the sun can never safely be seen.

More than their shining countenance
We lost the fear of the wild growth of Summer's court,
Of storms whipping branches thicker than a man's arm around like bellpulls,
And ivy wrapping around a fencepost, choking out spring's flowers.
We count out our chemo pills into plastic compartments marked with the days of the week
While we wring our hands over hurricanes tracked minute by minute
As if it would control them by watching
Any more than it did to light bonfires
And say their many names.

The door into Summer
Opens at the solstice
Whether bare-legged old women are there to mark it or not
And the long fingers of the Seelie Court
Rip cells through mitosis
With no regard for how we note the passage of their season or
How easily we forgot the fire under the sun's smiling face.

Stc #4

The Door Into Summer


Awaken
On the sandy shore
Warm
Safe haven of the barn
No more

Amidst the ruin
Wrought by the Hunter's meteor storm
Stands the lighthouse
A silent sentinel
Still and tall

Above
While below
A secret door
Behind it
Locked away
Is it my long lost love?

I can almost hear him call

For a moment brief
Sun having finally shone through it all

Distant
As if a horn sounding upon the seas
Through the many layers of mourning fog
Surrounding me with misty recognitions
Hand sewn into the fabric of faded dreams

Before the dark skies return
Clouding my head with more memories
Lifetimes not my own


In how many of these troubled times
Have we ended up here together?
Difficult it is to say

How can one uncover
The people we were before
Without ever knowing who we are
Today?

Compass failing
Never pointing True North
Once again it seems
I have lost my way

Blindly struggling forth
For better or for worse
In this maddening journey
Where I am forever finding myself
Too late

Only to make the discovery
I now wish to forget
Wiping clean the slate

Your troubles are my curse

Stc #5

The Door into Summer
.
I'll not see the coming season,
they say I killed a man
although I'm told there is a reason
throat slashed and then I ran

They say I killed a man
but it's slipping from my mind,
throat slashed but then I ran
now the memory is blind.

But it's slipping from my mind
I remember no such cut,
now the memory is blind
the door to Summer's slamming shut.

I remember no such cut
although I'm told there is a reason,
the door to Summer's slamming shut
I'll not see the coming season

Stc #6

The Door into Summer

was barely ajar, but still I could see
the many shirtless boys, their slim waists
so pale, pale in early June.

I stuffed tissue into the bra
of my bikini. To mislead them, I suppose.
But they so wanted

me to take it off that after a while, I did too,
and then the wind blew everything away,
scattering it up

like little flags or used tickets or lost handkerchiefs
dropped by inattentive tourists on
our (otherwise) deserted beach.

Stc #7

The Door Into Summer


In a hurry to get outside and play
Rushing through the door into summer
Slammed my little finger in it
Oh my gosh
Oh my golly
What a bummer
Bad news for a thumb sucker
Who does not want to stay
Indoors on a sunny day!
Mommy! Mommy! Please!
I'm begging you
On my knees
Make the pain go away
Writhing around on the floor
That motherfucker sure is sore
Being only four years old is really a bitch

Stc #8

THE DOOR INTO SUMMER

The door into summer is shut,
unless summer time is due,
I'm kind of expecting it but,
this grey I can't turn into blue.

The door into summer is far,
unless far is relative to
the place where that door stands ajar,
and I could perhaps slip in through.

To hear again haunting tunes,
admire again shinning eyes,
enjoy once more seasonal boons,
bikinis to materialize.

My door into summer is you,
if I could sense only or see,
the alchemy that was once true,
and had that faint scent of the sea.

So after all is said and done,
to drink myself senseless on you,
in pure but not innocent fun,
this grey I would turn into blue.

Stc #9

The Door Into Summer

opens through Dani's cottage window
as she watches danger work shirtless,
felling trees to season for firewood.

The hotter the morning, the more she tingles,
certain there's odor of musk in the air
when she hears the sound of his thwack,

but under a full moon rising tonight,
the only star she'll see is Venus
on the trail in Shoshone Forest

where she picks oxeyes with Esther
who says she baked some lady locks
they'll have with Lady Grey tea

and a roaring fire, strange though it seems,
but Dani will start one anyway
when Esther begs Dani please.

Stc #10

The Door Into Summer

The door into Summer
is weather faded blue,
cracked by the elements
but still holding fast,
rather like your
misguided principles.
But I needing
unfenced vistas
lifted the latch
opened it
and walked away.
Forever.

Stc #11

The Door Into Summer

No gaudy autumn greeted me,
My winter was not cold.
The planet spun reluctantly,
So bland, disheartened, old.

Perhaps the galaxies aligned,
Or maybe just because...
A helpful zephyr teased my mind,
I woke, and there she was.

She brought what spring had promised, though
It wasn't in the air,
And paints my days, like long ago,
With glowing solar flair.

It shines profusely down once more,
A flood of joyful sin,
Together we unlatch the door
And summer tumbles in.

Stc #12

The Door Into Summer

This heat can bake bare
feet on sand so I fizzle
my ankles in the spray,
wiggle toes in grainy cool.

Listen to the carnival that-a-way.

Bark and shill screams tilt
then fall between the waves,
docks are lit up white
and ticking wheels spin far
from the Moon down here
in the cups and cones, gray piles
of clams jumbled on ice.

Drove in on the causeway and over
the bay. Got my towel a book
my Bain de Soleil.

When I parked and opened the door Summer kissed me!
She gave me a slice and a small lemonade.

I drew a heart in the sand,
walked with the pipers
and wandered to shade,
cool shells and silence
thundering under the boards.

When I shut the door
and turn the key I'll drive
to forget December's
slouching barren day.

Stc #13

The Door Into Summer


Call it Climate Change
Nothing strange
Extreme weather
Fluctuation
Variation
Nothing out of the norm
More Lib-lib-liberal spin
Spoon fed to us
In an arena of media bias
New label slapped over old
Catchphrase
Global Warming

When your head is up your ass
It's easy to ignore the signs
Dismiss evidence scientific
Write it off as scaremongering
Until the sirens begin blaring
Their final warning
Until the sirens are blaring
For the very last time

Look
Up in the sky
Cataclysmic storming
Colossal hurricane eye
Forming in the ozone
Purple haze microwave
Maze of deadly ultraviolet rays
Flash charring skin
Fusing flesh to bone

Who left the door into summer wide open?
Invited in the biological devastation
Eventual Human Extinction
You did
Mister Greedy Corporation
Shithead
You did this

You made your tanning bed
Now lie in it
And fry
Lie in it
I sincerely hope to God
You fucking die in it

Shithead
In need of tanning lotion?
Give Wesson oil a try
Let's see you flash boil
I hope you fucking deep fry

Who left the door into summer wide open?
It was you
Shithead
Mister Greedy Corporation
The door into summer was left wide open
Fluctuation
Variation
The new norm?
Killer storm
In the form of radiation

Stc #14

the door into summer

damned summertime
when doors are also jars
and metaphors -
those bright and wilful things
once so adored -
now dull, abhorred
abjured for lack of lure
dim damsels in their towers, unexplored,
immured despite their tresses
silicone skins still flawless...

give me august's thunder, boil and hiss
to ease these endless blues with passion's kiss
fling wide the windows
batter down the doors
come strike this word-blind muse
saul's peter - floored

Stc #15

The Door Into Summer

Would you pick door number one?
Would you choose love that scalds,
a love that quickens, sears, and sanctifies?

The option is ours to flirt,
to skirt the margins of that nameless joy,
a price that may not be right.
Door number two is still spring.
That door is closing fast.

Some words bury the needle.
One touch could mean too much,
too much, too deep and sweet for us,
Whose hearts are spread so thin.

I made a bouquet of all my qualms.
I left it there, be-ribboned, in a basin.
A dab of sunscreen ought to be enough.

Sct #16

The Door Into Summer


The door into summer
Closed about forty years ago
Give or take a decade
When drive-in movie theatres
Transformed into vacant lots
Where mutant Grass Crabs
And ferocious Dandy Lions
Having set up shop in concrete chasm outposts
Continue to plot against the Human race
The total annihilation of our species
During a painstakingly long invasion
Few people to this very day are aware of
As they whip out their credit cards
Subscribe to Hulu and Netflix
And root for the destruction of aliens
On all manner of handheld devices
While waiting in Big Box Store lines to purchase
Smart Bug Bombs and Spider Slay spray

Stc #17

The Door Into Summer

kisses, silk soft turn the heat on
little beads of perspiration slide down the bottle
and splash a beaded drop of wet
that bursts the gates to need

the door creaks open as we land on the bed

twined like vines we writhe
naked skin on naked skin
the scent of bottle brush blooms red
the scent of summer
my legs looped over yours
your head on my chest
fingers play with your beasts
my breath and whispers stoke the flames
fire me in sun like heat
fingers unlock the latch to sweet honeysuckle sweat
the slick and wet
tease the folds
before they part and summers door opens to me
in lush gardenias

our breath taken as we
ride the waves of that burning star
and we lay lathered
sticky
satiated

you leave the keys to summers door
on my bedside cabinet

Stc #18

The Door Into Summer

I had lain about through each season
of constant dreariness, wanting just
to see you once again, to hold you

to my chest, that comforting warmth you
always have, no matter the season,
washing over and building me up just

as if there was no distance, no time, just
the concreteness of us--me and you.
That carried me through every season.

Only one season never carried that
want--just the first summer I had you.

Stc #19

The Door Into Summer


June 21st
Diary Entry #1

Despite having no obstacle in my path
It was a struggle
I managed to overcome
Pressing onward
Forcing myself through
Exiting the door into summer
For the very first time
Breathing fresh air
Feeling truly alive
And here before me was
A brave new world to explore
From the beaches of Brazil
All the way to Beijing, China
It is on this magnificent day
I look back upon it all
Only to see
The stretched opening that was once your
Vagina