a sonnet for my raisins

out of cardboard crafted piers.
children found chairs in a car garage, whistling-
songs of magazine pages, torn, appeared
captured in an oil stain underfoot.

likewise I have found the sun
atop cardboard stained red, singes:
the edge of desks, paper stung in
the reddened tips of our fingers.
"Sun-Maid" atop the mount, some
mottled odalisque. Beauty is more
of an absolute when you have spent
the last fifteen years poor,
wringing your hands and staring out
the window of a raisin factory.

Shriveled and wrinkled
barren like the weathered testicles of an old man,
devoid of seed or function.
Each day they dangle lower and lower
from the vine of their youth.
They cast their withering glances upwards
and re-live the days when they were luscious grapes
that swayed proudly in the breeze.

Once they were the food of the gods,
now, unfit for peasants, they wait to be plucked
and stored in the safety of a box
to be hidden away on a shelf
buried in the cool dark recesses
with the rest of the relics

Sorry - this title was just screaming out at me to do something with it...

I know thou wouldst have made a vintage fine,
mayhaps merlot or pinot noir, a bold
or vibrant cabernet, a boastful wine
to leave fond memories for hearts to hold.

As merely juice your mark you could have made
on some tot's hectic day, when fleeting flash
of impish grins gave way to gulps of ade
that left on lips a bright, purple mustache.

Or whole, upon a lover's bunch to pluck,
in sweet repose thou couldst have hung genteel,
amongst the sweet delights and, given luck,
thou wouldst have been the one chosen to peel.

But no, twas in the sun you sat to roast,
then mixed into a loaf, and thence my toast.

factory machinery in dirt by the freeway
under the opulence orb of a moonlit night
strung rows and rows in hundreds grows
on my lips the tingle of experience hight

things to do, that i have done
eating grapes
from vines at night is one

grapes from other seasons
in sustenance still exist