copyright @
From: The Poetical Works of Sieglinde Schaitberger
Autumn Sonata
Summer Sonata
It's October again,
and the ripe fruits have fallen
sheathed in gold, shattered in silence.
Agho has followed me home
down dusty roads and sparkled mornings,
through leaf red passages of time
to warmer days and applewine nights.

She floods me in warm body feelings
from some pastel printed storybook
tucked in trunks of wistfulness,
greets me with a needy look,
and wrapped in flannel coverlet
fells me with her tenderness.

It's October again
and she somehow calls with  coos and purrs
through leaf red passages of time
to better days and applewine nights.
See the sunstream leave the window
parted in the evening hush,
creeping vine and climbing roses
border downy verdant plush.
quiet Summer blows the curtain
softly Cricket sings the window
spreading moss and climbing feather
Gentle, gentle night bird enter

Fly the heavens, circle starpath!
Twine my hair and touch my singing..
Joy
of spirit slowly sipping,
kindness limp and twitter fading
down to gardens rocked in borders
cradled in the evening hush
creeping vine and climbing roses
border downy verdant plush
quiet Summer blows the curtain
softly Cricket sings the window
Spring Sonata
He comes in spring
while gentle rain licks the earth
and brings to life again
mushroom, pond, field and flower
season after season end.

The fog in pillows of softest down
melts from bland obscurity
into laughing pronged and regal crowns
settling the brown and rolling fields,
ennobling the flocked and matted soil
to Kingdoms of the Ground.

Be it red light or blue,
a sudden shining beacon in any hue
springs forth as an army of the mist,
and so with horns or yells
or even a quiet woodland hiss,
as diversionary troops tickling and running
their joking misdirections hit or miss,
A prince ready for the fog's magic kiss.
Winter Sonata
The evening is when time
channels your mind
and the wind moves as if all night is a tunnel.

You waken to the sweeping low,
receded by an early dark..
Winter's rasping whisper begs you,
raps upon your door.

The Man from the North claims you again,
he's sailed on the storm,
to take you to him for a time, blood warm
The night is yours alone.
He lays his body on yours,
hands cold upon your breast,
he pulls you to him roughly,
and never lets you rest,
yet, you love him still and desire him always.
Like the storm, he stays but a while,oh,
you long for the burning wood,
the lamps turned gold and slow,
the silhouette of mountain and tree
etched on the silvery snow,
and the soft bed on the teardrop side
of very long ago.
The Lady of the Lake
She comes swollen in the breath of midnight,
comes on ivory pathways lit by fireflies
over slightly wrinkled midwestern lakes.
She rides over deserted croquet fields
past wide,white porches facing musical bays
as frogs call for mates under yellow moons
of heavenly scented evenings in June.

Her sighs on wings of cloud wisps flow
and into the ears of yellow primrose
blow sweet suggestions for the morrow,
Ah, they perk and dance in wonderment

She comes in silken gauze
never strutting nor obscene,comes
on fingers of a velvet dark's deep peace,
until brown and faded as a fallen leaf
she falls against the window of eternity
The Soldier and the Ant
I held you last night, hid you safe in moon shadow
though you saw me not through the firefight,
and today, as you marched into the mouth of hell,
I was there
in that tiny blood soaked blade of grass
on which you fell.
I was that ant upon your boot
as you breathed your last,
and when they dragged you to the side,
I held you fast.
You were never alone
on that rock hard wind raw plain,
never cold under saber sharp skies,
nor drenched by metal rain...
We lay together in the end, you and I,
lost in the charging of a thousand currents merging,
lost in the preludes that ordained our ills,
lost in the trumpets and the flags,
the gurgles and the stench,
lost in the tolling bells,our innocence.
Father and I
Still in dreams I fly above
the wide turgid face of the great lake
and land at my father's feet

We wait for the storm to break,
my pagan father and I,
backs to shelter
alone in the universe,
my child-hand upon his rough arm.

He is big, yet we're both small,
waiting in that vast silence before a storm,
watching in that green, prickly air
for the wave pushing, sand blowing
Summer Sky Bird

Listening mute, big and small and small together,
for the distant drum roll to pound pain across
the flat surface of grey mother lake,
for the first sizzling crack to pierce its prey,
together.
My pagan father and I, one,
heart as heart, arm hair to arm hair, hand in hand
then, only then,
with the magic and the awe
when the roar swept inexorably from shore to shore
and the black walnut trees waved to her rhythm
one two one two
when the ravines widened for her swell
and the beach sand stayed back crying.

My father's eyes looked out to sea and mine at him
as the sky grew steadily dark, child to father,
Nostrils quavering with that lake smell,
that fishy hunger causing head clearing smell
of our watery mother..
.

OH,Daniel before the storm,
When music poured from the leaves,
When the roar came,
When the mighty mother heaved,
When the last bird honked,
When the green sky breathed.
Behold the Morning

Behold the morning breaking from night
wooed in thumb rubbed stratolight,
Her, that scarlet tongued earthen tease
milking the fading stars
Behold the morning as a narrow snake
slithering across the horizon.
Call to its earless form? She cannot hear.

Behold the morning as she glares evil, white eyed..
try and catch her with sword and pen?
She hides around too black a bend!
In some venomous cavity, out of reach,
until she comes again, drips in on a creamy dawns,
it's then she's hated the most.

Behold her:
cold, stark, cutting or rising in purple pain,
a numb panting afterbirth of summer rain..
she makes you paw the ground like an angry bull,
this "morning"
this cadaverous concubine
of our friend the Night.

You're a lady of the nightmoon?
You belong to the rushes and the trilling?
You married the late summer warm winds?
You make love to the mist and upturned  leaves?

Behold the morning when the moon still holds
her icy ridges in its grasp,
when her fangs glow mad dog red
over the heavens

You're a lady of the night sky?
Helpmeet to the Perseids fall,
lonely mother to them all?

Behold her now, as she takes you hostage,
tries to cradle you in her moist hairy lap

You're a lady of the night tunes?
You need the birds of prey and cricket call,
enchanted by their ebon pall?

What is your ransom?
If your flowers grew by moonshine
you could pay her with their whitened kisses,
glistening garland calls
and gentle flowing whispers.
Time would pass in bells and bowers,
ringing in your languid lovers,
and on the day would pass in gladness,
on and on and
on forever.
But you are lost in daybreak,
on and on and on in morning,,
songs unspoken, spells unbroken, on and on and
on forever
The Road Downeast
The road to Maine's not that far..
I've been down that road before,
rode in on the eastern sun one time,
got to Portland by dawn,
felt the morning shake and shiver,
saw the populace yawn and quiver,
and feeling I had a sermon to deliver, rode on,
on down the great gashing teeth of coast
until I hit the village of my knighthood,
and there I stayed like a lily in a pod,
and singing I sank my feet in sod,
bringing forth
eventually
the children of myself,
my jagged god,
We all then swayed with upturned arms,
petal stepping, graced by charm...
The road to Maine's not too far,
I've been down that road before,
rode out on the evening tide one time,
got to Hades by dawn
What the soul longs for, the body craves,
swept by the lingering melody
caught in the ebbing waves:
one gull, two rocks, three eagles, four storms,
Time, Truth, Loss, Love
one grain of sand
one
The Thirteenth Fairy
I wasn't there for the "celebration of your life"
I missed the handshakes and party platters,
the fake laughs and slide show, the old friends
and guest book and small, civilized drinks
and whiffs of fabric-softened occasional suits.

I sat in my room, alone,
except for my fickle friend Vodka,
sat there in the grey, surrounded by black umbrellas,
watching the solemn bearers and
listening to the Dance Macabre
while the wizened preacher droned,
Dust to dust
Ashes to ashes.
as you sank, sprinkled by the sod.
No nouveau levity here.

I held the tear stained note that I, the child, wrote you
long ago when you got drafted:
Please Danny! Don't die!
You laughed at it.
You laughed at it for half a century or more
and sent it back to me one day not too long ago.
It was my first concept of this event.
And you were my first memory of life.

I, so far away,
I, who knew you the longest,
I, who loved you the longest,
you, my first hero,
you, my only brother.
Please Danny! Don't die! I tell the wet pillow,
Please Danny! Don't die! I tell the night,
Please Danny! Don't die! I tell the bottom of the glass

while the wizened preacher drones
and you sink, sprinkled by the sod