13 August 2014

Excuses, Excuses

This time, I have a pretty good reason for being so slack around here. I discovered a literary journal that impressed me sufficiently that I began to consider it. The literary world in general is not attractive to me, and I have not sought to find a place in it—until perhaps now. More formal verse is being published these days, so the zeitgeist is finally with me. We shall see. As I was making up my mind, I did not want to post anything here that I might wish to submit there. Now that I have made my selection, I would like to share a recent piece of work.

After this, it will be a while before I post again as I will be traveling.

Happy Summer to us all!

1 August 2014

1

Homing

If there really never came a trace of warning, why should we
be sad as we await the words that lead to mourning? Couldn’t he
have told us long before it happened, this will hurt, and very much?
I am going home alone, I really am. The cold wet touch
of what has meant me harm forever sought out my slight neck. I walked
a solid, hard half-mile before I glanced back once. I’d long been stalked;
I knew who stared behind me as my footsteps grew in length and weight.
No one lay beside me when I stayed up late. God knows my fate
is delicate, and complicated. Leaves will yellow, fall, and lie
strewn all about the feet I mean to leave myself. Pale pages, die,
but glow forever after I am just an inverse-shadow. Why
console the lonely, old, recording angel who is soul at fly?
Remember who we used to be, when uses made so much of her—
She died, she closed her eyes, she made her way back home, and—Don’t confer.
Each of us is broken; when we draw out first, we fly home fast,
and then we circle round again. It’s home, it’s us; it’s home at last.