Sunday, May 29, 2016

Poem: Wind Thought

Although I find work on my novel satisfying and fully challenging, I miss my poetry.  I hope to return to those voices when the novel is finished.

I might start posting some of my poems here somewhat frequently.  I'm proud of them, and honored that they chose me.  Each required a great deal of mental struggle and passionate upheaval.

This one is from one of my nine chapbooks.  I hope to consolidate them into a full-length collection someday.

But, you know, in the end one must ask, Why do we write?

Who can, or will, really listen?

And why?

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Wind Thought

its broken career
makes goblins
out of trees,
whistles wounded
in their teething
fissures.

it steals hats,
pulls Medusa
from our heads,
writhing locks
like Marley’s chains,

all of us Scrooge
near this astral waif
who craves our gifts—

this first panhandler

who sups fall leaves
like hors d’oeuvres from mud,
catapulting its thirst,
restless for a bed

but finding only space,
emptier greedier space,
a vortex of racks
stretching all ways—

as if wind were
some protean Atlas,
trapped yet fleeing,
breaking out
in tantrums that lurch,

only to lick god’s
toe.


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2 comments:

  1. To answer your question
    it's a substitute for fishing
    this compulsion,

    walking one evening
    one man I saw casting
    his line in the stream
    meandering here and there,
    catching nothing
    but thoughts,
    at peace with himself
    and the other one
    slumped in his canvas seat
    on the bank
    as the orange tip
    of his float
    bobs in the wavelets,
    the sixpack beer
    glimpsed in the mouth
    of the tent . . .

    ReplyDelete