Courthouse Park

Oak, sycamore, and elm begin to lose their blush.
Slender-sided branches rub and rattle
As the cold wind bares the musty,
Antique underbellies of leaves
In their delicate freefall.

Scattering across concrete horizons
They crack like thin paper bones,
Under the leather soles
Of wistful-faced people
In daily dispatch.

The bronze vanity of their autumn gowns
Slowly undress,
In the chilling stare of November.

Sierra Storm

Twilight renders its own soliloquy
as a thunderstorm envelops
this promontory dominion
of nature and repose.

A white pine
juts out obliquely from a crevice
on Half Dome,
straining through cracked granite.

A claw of incandescent nerves
clutch the sky,
peeling back the dark layer
of imminent evening.

Thunder ripples
off canyon walls,
as the white pine trembles
like a dissonant tuning fork.

^

Biography

Anthony Wayne Langston studied poetry at CSU Fresno in the early 70's and had notable poets Philip Levine, Peter Everwine and Charles Hanzlicek as professors. Currently residing on the Central Coast of California with his wife and three daughters, A.W. Langston works for the San Luis Obispo County Department of Social Services as a Program Review Specialist when he isn't writing poetry. "Poetry is a sounding board for me.... It allows a creative outlet of my observations of the world around us and the intuitive nature all living things share."