Don Clermont currently holds a B.A. in French literature and has published literary research in Bishop’s University’s Journal of Eastern Townships Studies. As an emerging writer, he has also published poetry in SUNY Plattsburgh’s Z-Platt, 50 Haikus and Z Publishing House’s New York’s Best Emerging Poets. A few of his favorite contemporary poets are Nick Laird, Lloyd Schwartz, and Maria Nazos.

Apple Blossom New York Breeze

Apple blossom New York breeze,
even memories of fathers don’t complicate it.
Ex-wives and illness haunt my movement,
across the golden fields and stolen junkyard cars
that speckle the land with irresponsibility,
and people screech, and cry, and they leave,
Irish boys in the back of limousines,
like floating wood on lakes,
either boats or drift, in late-summer sun,
and dark-eyed mexicanas wave goodbye in rear-view mirrors,
to live on only in the hearts of those mad to love.
The blackened road shines in the Latin sunset,
hiding behind the receding sea,
as purple clouds move in and the gray disappears,
now only screaming colors are left.

[image: Crab Apple Trees, Riverside Park | Jake Rajs ]