A Murfin Verse August Tantrum

So far August hasn’t been too bad in the northwest boonies of your greater Chicago metroplex.  We escaped most of the devastating heat waves that have baked much of the U.S. although smoke from Canadian wildfires gave us the worst air quality on several days.  There was a severe drought in June, but a succession of thunderstorms and some soaking rain have greened things up considerably.  Those thunderstorms produced the most tornados, albeit mostly small EF0s and EF2s in the country this year, far north of the usual tornado alley.  This week has been pleasant and mostly dry with daytime temperatures in the 80s.

Wildfire smoke from Canada obscured the sky at this McHenry County Metra commuter line crossing.

So why am I not sanguine about all of this damn summer pleasantness?  Because I know it can’t last.  Sooner or later August will come roaring back like a blast furnace and sap my will to live.  I am an old man now and I have seen too many Illinois Augusts not to know it’s coming!

Back in 2011, a year when Mc Henry County was nearly leveled by a derecho—a so-called land hurricane—followed by over a week of days in the upper 90s, saturating humidity, and power outages, I wrote and posted my anti-paean to this month.  I preemptively offer it again.  It will be appropriate again soon enough.

Two poets doing heavy lifting on an oppressively hot August day some years ago in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood.  Ira S. Murfin and The Old Man entertained pigeons, passed out drunks, and loyal captive family at a free public reading we optimistically advertised as Two Poets, No Waiting.

 

Nobody Writes Poetry About August

 

Oh sure, gush about your May mornings,

your dazzling June, even your soggy April.

Haul out your Roget’s for September ripening grain,

          October umber and amber, November crisp air.

Let crystal December dazzle your eyes,

          and wallow in some January bleak mid-winter.

Maybe if it weren’t for lovers February, short and wretched,

          might fare worse—who can rhyme it anyway?

 

But who writes paeans and odes to August?

 

Long days have lost their charm amid the swelter,

          birds gasp on telephone wires,         

          stray cats dance on asphalt,

          sweating lovers can’t be bothered,

          children crank and whine,

          strangers snap like match sticks

          and fill each other full of holes,

          the fucking lawn needs mowing—again.

 

Write about that, you damn poets.

          Go ahead—I dare you. 

 

 —Patrick   Murfin