‘Boast of the Poplar’ and Other Poetry by Neal Dachstadter

Boast of the Poplar

My common green I turn to gold,
As Summer’s steaming, burning hold
is broke, unseemly in July,
At the close to mollify.

I the Poplar; broad my graft,
I see afar: afore and aft,
Uncloke my leaves at August crest,
In golden sheaves I thump my chest.

The Winner

​Above the strand, engrossed in thought
Upon the sand, alone, untaught
Untold was seen of motion still
Of old, an ocean scene of chill

And in the quiet, words were forged
None of riot, none were charged
All of peace, and rest and sun
Ceasing all, his quest he won.

Autumn Pumpkins

Green and gold the pumpkins grew,
Dark with Early Autumn dew,
Beneath a new September sky:
August – minted, cool and dry.

Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in Tennessee.  His work has been printed in Decanto Poetry Magazine (UK), Western Viewpoints and Poetic Images: the Great American West (Woodinville, Washington), Society of Classical Poets Journal 2015 (Mt Hope, New York), Rocky Point Times (Puerto Peñasco, Mexico) and The Lyric (Jericho, Vermont).  A member of the Demosthenian Literary Society at the University of Georgia, he deployed to Hawija, then wrote on Lookout Mountain, continuing with Delta Kappa Epsilon International.  Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and Athens encouraged him as a writer.  In 2015 he wrote in Arizona at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument five miles north of Mexico.

CODEC Stories: