Thursday, December 5, 2019

poem

Poem #9


Some poems punch you in the gut.
Others slap you upside the head.
Some trip a wire that triggers
a trapdoor dropping you into the abyss.
Some are like a dive from a tent pole platform
Into a tiny bucket of ice water.
Some force you to look at your own damn face.
Others just welcome you to the club.


There are nascent poems all over the house;
Scraps of paper, recent receipts,
Cramped, uneven, down-veering scrawlings
In the marginalia of half read books, old magazines.
Someday I'll gather them all in a pile.
Strike a match.
Captured afterglow collages of a life 
Of long hot showers,
Sunday bottles of wine,
Hallway pacings, fingers to lips,
He always plays with his hands,
Back and forth lawn mower laps.
Drop everything and scribble something down.
It all seemed so important at the time.

12/4/19

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