Chaplet #8 - Yellow Shift and Unruly by Joris Soeding

Yellow Shift and Unruly 

Joris Soeding

for Blake and Victoria

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Christa, Mami and Papa, the Poskozim family.

Praise for Terek Puckett’s “The 20 Best Neo-Noir Films Of The 1970s” for thirty-three movies to consider. My coffee-stained list was the foundation for many library visits in search of films that inspired the poems. 

Gratitude is due to my father-in-law, Paul Poskozim, Sr., for two of the cover photos for a draft of the chapbook and countless discussions on poetry and each stage of this collection. 

Acknowledgement is made to the editors of the following publications in which these poems previously appeared: 

Briller Magazine: “Complicated,” “Under Tokyo Lights” 

Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry: “Iniquitous Suits and the Dead Brother” 

Love Like Salt (Anthology, Manchester, UK): “In Between Jazz”

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Table of Contents

In Between Jazz
Slowed
Silencing of ’76
Iniquitous Suits and the Dead Brother
Complicated
Kristen
During the Search for a Missing Girl in the Keys
Secrets from Hamburg
New Mexico
Under Tokyo Lights

About the Author
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In Between Jazz

he won’t let her in
blonde in a green dress
bright red nail polish
even with a drink he’s silent to her
until she nearly strolls
fidgeting a hoop earring
reassuring him that he can speak
he has his nametag on from the conference
a faded photograph of the ocean and rocks
hangs above the wallpaper crease
she feels her phone is being recorded
he will check his soon enough



Slowed

he invites her to walk as she practices flipping a silver baton in the front yard
she writes that he looks like James Dean
on dates he talks of a tree in the river
sends his vow of standing next to her in a box with a large, red balloon
the dollhouse burns
car sputters into the street
they hide as James and Priscilla
basket fish near the forest, dance to ‘Love is Strange,’ stare at the clouds
they inearth some of their things, like photos, in a bucket
maybe someone would find it and reason in 1,000 years
something’s between them by the lights of Cheyenne
Nat King Cole’s ‘A Blossom Fell’ and their shadows from headlights



Silencing of ’76

nothing shakes the one in a belted, tan turtleneck
not even shots fired at the other woman
blood falls onto the hood
below a limp, electric worker
nothing is reported until then, followed by white smoke
night began only with a coffee and two sugars



Iniquitous Suits and the Dead Brother

he reads ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ on the train
English countryside before smokestacks, soup, sunset
finishing tea, he straightens up the lapel
while watching screws swivel into his brother’s casket
yellow-beige sofa, muted orange drapery, wallpaper that matches pillows
he sits next to a brunette with long eyelashes and a white, silk shirt, half-unbuttoned
after knowing who is responsible for the murder
he mails a manila envelope to the Vice Squad in London
next is the gentleman, a classmate another life ago
drives a burgundy Cadillac and is reminded about losing all horse races



Complicated

in a red bathrobe and washed hair
much different than the man he was downtown, scraggly and sauntering
trying to fit in with the grit and worn room
now it’s simple—light through windows from the backyard
then phone calls without “hello” and “bye”
photos of men with money and property
green station wagons near Mulholland Drive
people in turtlenecks; which one is trustworthy?
in Italy, far from the red chandelier with tassels,
indoor pool with tall plants, bar, paintings, fireplace
there are cars racing on cliffs
her arms around his shoulders yet he doesn’t embrace his mistress



Kristen

Michigan to California
she’s fled from father
for all that wasn’t
in that dining room
that small, snowy town



During the Search for a Missing Girl in the Keys

he follows them
sees her kiss him in the car
in front of the Magnolia Theater
he writes the license plate number in a little notebook
his wife looks ecstatic
he waits for the man by playing chess
rather than argue
he tells him about the past
interception in ’63, father leaving him
what he once was
at forty he gives up the private investigator agency
slowly opens a plastic tub
spoons vanilla ice cream
lies down on his desk
head on the answering machine
his shirt off, hers unbuttoned, under sun yellow sheets
he fidgets with the metal stick and chunks of bread
fondue pot at the bed’s end
she says he’s different this time, distant
they speak of his father and finding the right clues



Secrets from Hamburg

he drives under yellow and red stars
near the trolley, Perry Como’s ‘Christmas Dream’ on the radio
trailed by news of JFK and Parkland Hospital
he was already elsewhere before Dallas
not in the holidays and cobblestone streets
after stopping at the deceased elder’s apartment
he takes his diary to the car and home
in bed with his girlfriend
then walks to the kitchen, in a robe, to boil water for tea
she follows in his dress shirt to the table with jam jars
while she dances at the Regina Cabaret he begins reading
under the dark yellow down comforter and Holocaust stories even at 3:30 a.m.
he must find the man who took the late elder’s wife
approaches his boss at Komet Magazine
justice and the cover story
he is hounded while shopping with her
the crowd of St. Pauli train station
he knows where the murderer hides
among suits, cigars, an electric company
he drives to Heidelberg with 1,000 Marks and an address



New Mexico

they make love on a round, bright yellow bed
bank owner’s secretary and the robber
facing two egg-like chairs
flowers in a vase
untucked cream sheets
the owner
framed and on a nightstand
he tells her about his late wife’s wedding ring
now on his pinky
well after black powder near the pines
gloves on the steering wheel of a white van



Under Tokyo Lights

he returns after twenty years
trenchcoated and strolling the market
chooses white roses for old love
the bar and coffee shop with his last name
he no longer drinks
she is cleaning glasses
says they’re closed
she takes it all in, is in disbelief, hesitates
they drink tea over the scrapbook
discuss secrets and photos in sergeant stripes
no gray hair
in front of the three ceramic, monkey statues
finally kiss—time gone shortens it
tomorrow he continues for Kyoto
leaving her for a few days
and the canvas of faded trees
to reflect on a train with orange and ochre curtains
wonder of a grown daughter
which land is home


copyright 2018, Joris Soeding
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About the Author

Joris Soeding’s third chapbook, In Between the Places Where Night Falls, was published by Lummox Press. His first full-length poetry collection, Home in Nine Moons, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing House. Soeding’s writing has appeared in publications such as Another Chicago Magazine, Belle Rêve Literary Journal, The Horror Zine Magazine, and Red River Review. He is a 7th/8th grade Social Studies teacher in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, son, and daughter.

Chaplet #7 - Disappearing Darkness by Martin Willitts Jr.

Disappearing Darkness

by Martin Willitts Jr.

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Table of Contents: 


1. In Winter
2. Hands Stirring
3. Path in the Woods
4. Sudden Rain
5. Lesson
6. Before You Go
7. October
8. Geese
9. September
10. Maples

Cover photo: ABSFreepic.com
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In Winter 

I had to see what made a noise, ping-crunch. 

It was icicles breaking free
from spruce needles
shattering on blackened
limestone
where the back roads ended abruptly.




Hands Stirring 

When my hands are never sure what to do,
they circle.

There is a wind trying to learn
all there is in the world.

My hands stir words of seasons, endlessly.
There is stillness that never happens.

If I turn up the volume of silence,
what will you hear?




Path in the Woods 

Close up, this path seems to go nowhere
but I followed it to its illogical conclusion.
I wanted to know if it went anywhere
and when it didn’t I was not surprised.
But wherever I went, it took me there.




Sudden Rain 

                          rain
  wavering on the windshield


                         heavy pellets
of crystals
                         careening off the car hood

             portions
                                      clanging
                                      into disappearing darkness

light
silhouetting                   on wet black road surfaces




Lesson 

when a flower is dying
it drops petals
loss and regret
one petal then
another 

each time
the flower leaves
revealing the truth of life and death 

we all die
we are all forgotten




Before You Go 

Notice this light
filling in the empty spaces.

Notice the tracks in fresh snow.
They are not human, but
they are heading towards home.

Notice, the quiet has stopped here,
facing the cloudless sky,
simple as a room without furniture.

Notice: no one answers when called.

Experiences like this happen
without even trying, and then,
night wakes up, opens a door,
trying to catch up with those tracks
before they disappear into new snow,
before the woods enter into us.




October 

in ancient October light
far into the fields
turning rustic-red
our path is worn thin




Geese 

Somewhere, geese are plunging into faraway lakes,
skidding over water, hiding in brush, waiting
for that deep, connective-calling to begin —
when memory is glowing white and hard, fierce,
straining at their wings.




September 

Over earth’s shoulder,
the sun had not come
like a promise
of extending a helping hand.

September slows everywhere down to a grind.




Maples 

In autumn fields,
there is a graveyard of maples.

Not even dark places are safe.


copyright 2017, Martin Willitts Jr.
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About the Author

Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, and a Central New York Individual Artist Award for "Poetry On The Bus". 

Chaplet #6 - Inexplicable by Michael Keshigian

Inexplicable 

by 

Michael Keshigian

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 


Publication, print and electronic, where some poems from Inexplicable have appeared. These Include: 

Black Poppy Review 
Blue Pepper 
California Quarterly 
Illya’s Honey 
Poppy Road Review 
Red River Review 
Tipton Poetry Journal
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CONTENTS 


Present Comfort 
Home Again 
Primordial Night 
Salvation 
The Beckoning 
Wind 
That Other Place 
Upon The Lakeside Porch 
Positioned 
The Ghost Moon
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PRESENT COMFORT

He stands in the open doorway,
a brisk breeze caresses his face.
There is a shadow cast
from a dried maple branch
of straight lines
dyed black upon the lawn
that resembles a stick man,
an apparition that points up
as if to designate its source.
He imagines himself the outline
penciled atop the green,
where the grass is cool and moist
as it brushes his skin, where migrant ants
and earthworms tickle his underside
when they course beneath.
The landscape is quiet otherwise.
He is content. Vagrant clouds, like the years,
move rapidly over him,
close enough to the sun
to threaten and momentarily
dissipate his imprint.
There is nothing he might do
to stem the inevitable,
but to distract himself
with the magic about,
for the future is black, the present, light,
though it will yield no notice
when it dissolves him.





HOME AGAIN

Abandoned house, are there
only spiders and rodents
residing amid your rooms?
I see my distorted image
upon the fogged glass
of the old storm door,
and feel like a prowler,
appraising the value of items
upon your walls
or tucked in your corners,
when, in truth, I seek
to rekindle precious memories
and reconstruct pictures
the recent days
have begun to obscure,
events the rain of years
are washing away,
remembrances,
trickling indiscernibly
through the pitted window
of my mind’s eye
as I rap my fist
against the glass,
hoping the ghosts will answer.





PRIMORDIAL NIGHT

Startled by the intense breath of wind,
the windows rattled as did
the supportive beams and joints,
creaks and moans that instigated angst.
The maples and oaks raised havoc,
swaying manically,
dropping bits of limbs and leaves,
evoking sounds of mayhem
that flustered his psyche
with ingredients to spawn past ghosts
that invaded and tormented his slumber.
Finally, with one eye open,
he noticed the three-quarter moon
winking upon the horizon
between menacing clouds,
casting an ashen light
which squatted upon his comforter,
its morbid gaze straddled his stilled torso.
This night, he concluded,
folded beneath his blankets,
was filled with dread,
and he, all alone,
became aware and afraid,
held hostage by moonlight
that highlighted primitive sounds,
inciting shivers through tensed muscles
and shaking extremities,
as he lay with eyes open wide,
attempting to coax daylight from the dark.





SALVATION

He stands beside the window
and stares at a feathery cloud
in the shape of a beautiful woman,
the wind’s sighs
become warm breaths upon his neck,
He bleeds through the glass
like a forlorn ghost
and drifts upward for companionship,
glancing downward, noticing
the neighbors’ yards are empty,
drenched in abundant sunshine,
as he, at this moment,
floats radiant and satisfied.
He soars, her vaporous arms await,
there is little he can do.
He has traversed into a fantasy
that extracted him
from a deep melancholy,
salvation without warning,
triggered to diminish
the angst of loneliness.




THE BECKONING

Upon a summer’s eve when the lawn
was not yet drenched with dew
and still radiant from the day’s warmth,
when the tips of white pines
rose skyward like long fingers
to tickle the underside of stars
as the evening air vibrated
to a cricket ostinato, he laid atop the grass,
arms and legs extended,
and marveled at the infinite distance
above him with its clustered collection
of variously illuminated rocks and stones,
wondering what will become of him
once his time in this dimension ended,
where he might find himself,
what form he might take, and in fact,
would he be aware to bear witness.
His thoughts transcended
and for an instant he became one
with the mass about him and believed he heard
his name whispered in the harmony about,
a single concordant breath, faint and distant,
like a dried autumn leaf
brushed by a wandering snowflake
as though it belonged,
not to him or his parents
who endowed it upon him,
nor to this place on earth, but to the vast emptiness
and unanswered question from which we all appeared,
to which we shall all return.




WIND

Awake in bed,
he hears it stir,
God’s breath while He sleeps,
a gentle breeze
from His nostrils
to yield us life.
It is death’s howl,
a bellow from below,
roaring above the eaves
to hasten the march of time
as well as the whimsical laugh of Earth,
raising the blue layer of ocean garments
to reveal white crinoline
beneath shapely crests
where arrowhead wrinkles
between each wave
point toward the horizon’s quiver.
It bursts forth warnings
at our digressions,
though in resignation adds humidity
to wash away the stale taste
our behavior occasionally emits.




THAT OTHER PLACE

He walks through
the gray shadows of dusk,
shadows not dark enough
for sightlessness
nor clear enough for recognition,
yet he construes,
upon the hazy horizon
of delineated mountain peaks,
the outline of a human form oscillating,
a form unfamiliar
in a dimension unknown
where light slashes invading clouds
to bits of confetti
then spreads like a veil
upon the indistinguishable terrain
in a place beyond
which comes, as it has before,
to those who will eventually travel,
a place, at times, that is reflected
in our dreams
where anguish vanishes,
where the living cannot visit.





UPON THE LAKESIDE PORCH

Upon the porch lakeside,
he faced the blank, midnight stillness of water,
no stars were to be seen, no horizon lights,
no moon dissecting the wet surface,
only a darkness which camouflaged his hand
in front of his face.
He stared into the emptiness
to memorize the sensation
into which he will one day be delivered,
closing his eyes and relinquishing himself
to the feeble, dark breath of wind
to perhaps perceive
a precursor of the inevitable,
lurking closer day by day.

Fish swim without question
beneath the surface of the lake,
surrounding mountains
continue to adorn the seasons’ trends,
but his desire was to determine
why he became a stranger to himself,
quizzically imagining an event
that would be his vanishing,
akin to snowflakes falling, or just one flake,
layered upon others to eventually melt away.
There is much he might contemplate,
yet hardly determine,
staring into this feigned abyss,
a play regarding the unknown,
actors in undefined roles,
in a script written with no characters in mind.





POSITIONED

The whitish blue façade of the country sky
towers over him like an unpainted canvas
as the distant song of cardinals
indiscriminately blotch
red patches against the sky.
His eyes are open as he stares up
from the wetted, verdant growth
that dampens his back,
watching the sun nip and tuck,
like a ping-pong ball,
behind the accumulating cumulus giants.
The tall white pines are just beginning
to awaken, shaking fog
from their fir tops
still lost in sleep.
It is morning, atop the grass
he feels content, imagining perhaps,
that death might be like this.
A beam of sunlight bites his flesh,
the heat envelopes
his naked arms and legs.
He drifts and sweats,
thinking about the day when the sun
no longer highlights his presence,
that he will lie,
unlike this moment,
beneath a moonless night,
invisible as the air.




THE GHOST MOON

Through the congested
clouds it creeps,
its vague, cratered tonnage,
amid the dust, glides hauntingly
through the mystery about,
its path worn thin,
reflecting the ambitions
above which it hovers
that are slowly invading
dark recesses once hidden,
barely illuminated by starlight.
Its ghostly image
meanders in and out of sight,
passing through night
like a dream
of continuous divergence
though its warning
and pleas can never be discerned
for under the black sky
it has been decreed
to navigate in exile,
growing more blanch
with every revolution
as we stare,
sometimes in melancholy
sometimes in wonder,
knowing no person
will cast themselves asunder
as savior.




copyright 2016, Michael Keshigian
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Keshigian’s tenth poetry collection, Beyond was released in May, 2015 by Black Poppy Review. Other published books and chapbooks: Dark Edges, Eagle’s Perch, Wildflowers, Jazz Face, Warm Summer Memories, Silent Poems, Seeking Solace, Dwindling Knight, and Translucent View. Published in numerous national and international journals, he is a 6-time Pushcart Prize and 2-time Best Of The Net nominee.

Chaplet #5 - Dark Flower by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Dark Flower

Poetry & Cover Art

By Stephen Jarrell Williams

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Table of Contents

My Secrets

Only A Few Are Picked*

Always In The Distance

The Plea

Night call

The Spell

Her Necklace

My Only Hope

* First published in Black Poppy Review

January 30, 2015

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My Secrets

My secrets are ancient

Myths have formed at their edges

My face and form are forever

Changing somewhat with my mood

Pressing my finger on another mini knot

Beginning bulge trying to rise on my forehead

Tip of a horn

A circular rubbing it down keeps my intentions hidden

Vampire heal thyself

And I do

I was one of the first to write and paint

Abstract meanings

Dark flowers

Filing down my growing nails and teeth

Never wearing a cape

Staying away from mirrors a joke

Turning into smoke and flying like a bat so ridiculous

But it gives a scare and helps to cover my footprints

The day a whim

Night its covering

I am high and low and fickled like an old hag

I’m strong as a mad bull on the charge

I am a lie

I am a quiver magnified

I laugh until I’m hoarse when drunk

But the truth is I often convulse into fits of tears

I drink the wine of others

Slow sips of boring lives

But some make me a child again

Dreaming dreams I wish to die within.

Only A Few Are Picked

The long night lingers before you

But you know its end will be too quick

Too painful

Too full of eyes closing

You step out on the street

Cars moving and pedestrians walking

Unaware of all the hovering above them

Only a few are picked

Only a few morsels in this area of the city

But there’s a whole country

A whole world half in darkness

And half blinded by the light

The harvest is plentiful

A chooser’s paradise

No one listening

Or believing

The monsters among us.

*First published in Black Poppy Review

January 30, 2015

Always in the Distance

This night bringing everyone out

A calming breeze with another day done at the job

I see you down the street walking around the corner

My steps quicken as you are always beyond me

Seemingly teasing me to follow

Just to get another glimpse

Another sigh

Amplified when I cannot find you

The streets elongated with those so fortunate

Those that have seen you up close

Those that keep a picture of you in their minds

A picture to return to in their dreams

But for me

You are gone again

Always disappearing

Into your hiding place

For somehow you have sensed me

Sensed my strangeness

Sensed my need to hold you in my arms

Struggling against me

Plucking your magnificent wings off

Kissing you with the kiss of sin

But never leaving you in the unreachable distance.

The Plea

Every night the stars seem to reach down and stroke me

Then they crush me

Pushing me face first into the street

Mashing me into the asphalt maggots

It takes

Everything I have to get up

Blood soaked again

Beautifully wicked within the shadows of the fallen

I can fly now

But never high enough

The earth and its magnetic pull

Overpowering

We are trapped

Trapped in the taking of others with us

Trapped in hearing their pleas for release

We turn to the seductive release of the crazed

It whips at us

Whipping

Whipping continually

Oh please

Let the sun rise again

In a garden of long ago when the world was whole.

Night Call

The last of the day ebbs back toward the horizon

Shadows collecting into the darkness

Souls and those without souls

Hoping what we have heard is not true

Us that feel the sharp pain of separation

A rebellion in our blood

We are the stone-hard dreamers

Whispering in the crowning of night

Magnificent in our madness

I say “we” and I seldom see

Others of my kind

But we are everywhere

We often attain greatness in the public eye

But more often we are hidden within

Capes and caves and cavernous mansions

And the world sweeps past us

As we grab at the strands of life

Lost from a time we cannot remember

The night always calling

Leading us out into the emptiness

The endless search of loneliness

Tortured by the so-called people of love.

The Spell

You’re in a state of dreams and half awareness

My spell upon you

Your eyes heavy

Your body light

Floating with my touch

Quivering with my words

Stillness of night outside the window

A ring of candle lights around our bed

You have a slight smile of anticipation

Your flesh rosy pink

Soon to be caressed

Tingled into a thirst

Your moans expecting heaven

Your suppressed screams ready to be released

Nothing like this

Has ever happened to you

The floorboards creaking

With my weight coming down upon you

Snuffing out the candles

Consuming your unbelieving world into mine.

Her Necklace

She didn’t wake up screaming

Wondered why the sunlight through the window

Did nothing to me

She went to the bathroom

Peed blood

Rinsed her mouth with water from the tap

She came back into the bedroom unafraid

Stood before me smiling

Took her necklace off

Placed it in the palms of my hands

She gave me a kiss on the cheek

And left me alone

A silver cross

A dare

Dangling from the necklace.

My Only Hope

My paradise will be death

Never seeing another that I must have

Never seeing another like myself

Only a few of us begging for the end

The matrix of the mirror

My only hope

Truth in the great sacrifice

A man hanging on a cross long ago

For everyone and those such as I.

copyright 2016, Stephen Jarrell Williams

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About the Author: 

Not so long ago, Stephen Jarrell Williams was called by some, the Great Poet of Doom…  Now, he writes at night, enthused, and waiting for the Coming Good Dawn.

Chaplet #4 - Some Things You Can Never Repair by Martin Willitts Jr.

Some Things You Can Never Repair

By Martin Willitts Jr.

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Table of Contents

Blackberries

The Clearing

Defense Mechanisms

Accident Report

Companion Planting

It's Not Fair

Some Things You Can Never Repair

In a Lifetime

Why Darkness Whimpers

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Blackberries 


Consider our aimless wandering to find it. 
One berry is always in radiant light 
waiting to be found 
while the other berry must be found 
by trance-like seeking; otherwise, 
we never find what is worth discovering. 


Consider the black crackle 
poking at the blue thread 
wanting more color in its life. 
Also consider the cicada 
burrowed in the ground 
before tunneling out. 
One knows patience; 
the other has desire. 


Consider when a person dies, 
their eyes film over with a vision — 
they see their lives backwards, 
all what they did or did not do. 
You notice the horrified look 
when they judge their own failures, 
their tarnished lives. 


However, the ones who follow the blue thread 
of what they did right, 
tunnel out into the light.



The Clearing 


the clearing answers all questions 
whether it is the translucent dew 
or my transparent desire 


a terminal twig has the impetus to die 
yet hangs on 
in determined hesitation 


if asked what is perfection 
one might suggest the full tree 
with a nest of robins 


or the white orchid 
or the sense of invisible breath 
or the imponderable red dawn 


there is a hidden force 
moving from every direction 
it has been here since the beginning 


not silence not persistent noise 
but climbing through every life 
approaching to the very end



Defense Mechanisms 


There was a white mare with Dalmatian spots. 
It was pulling the fruit wagon of my childhood. 
The wheels clacked on the cobblestones 
long before we could see it. 
The black flies tormenting the twitching ears. 
It was a nipping, twisting sound. 


The owner wanted new horseshoes. 
He waited too long. We had to shave the bottoms. 
It hobbled and the owner left whip marks on its back. 
It had purple welts like lightning bolts. 


It flinched when we tried to heal it. 
It rose on hind legs to strike out. 
If we showed fear, it would have kept striking. 
Those spots were dried blood. 


When the horse saw us, did he see a cruel god? 


It reminded me of a man in an asylum, 
his skull saddle-stitched from a pre-frontal lobotomy. 
For a split second when he recognized me 
he settled down, his nostrils no longer flaring. 
But when the orderly entered, 
he reared to defend himself.



Accident Report 


There was a pick-up with five children in the open back 
sliding around without seatbelts. It was snowing fiercely. 
One child stood and jumped, somersaulting over black ice. 
The car behind could not stop. 


I wish life had happy endings, but Death was wearing a parka, 
flashing a light over the scene while red snow settled everywhere. 


His partner, Coincidence, took notes and insurance cards.



Companion Planting 


Every year, our small garden is crowded by my over planning. 
I forget how wide the yellow squash leaves fan out, 
and now they are shading the onions. My enthusiasm creates 
fifteen foot snow peas, butternuts crawling over the asphalt, 
more loose leaf lettuce than a rabbit can eat. 


Someday, my planting and harvesting will end. The weeds 
will take back what is theirs. The feral will sniff out 
of darkness. There will be nothing left of me except mulch. 


But who is to say a woman might bring pruning gloves, 
her hair tied under a bandana? She might bend over the earth, 
trowel in her hand, green eyes focused on the hole she has dug, 
plant a tomato and pat the ground around it, talking to it. 
She might slide her finger on the furry underside 
just to smell tomato on her fingers.



It’s Not Fair 


The pink sky flares up in morning 
and you are not here to see it. It’s not fair — 
clouds wrinkle across the sky 
like your frown when your heartbeat 
could no longer be summoned. 
In the distance, the moon howls 
like a wounded animal limping its last inches. 


It’s not the smell of rosehips 
hiding in the sheets no matter how many times 
I washed them, but it is the garden gloves empty 
and covered by dried dirt 
causes dreams to explore the ruins of any landscape. 


It’s not the fresh chopped onions 
and forgetting to wash my face to ease the sting, 
but it’s the butter knife never used on your crackers. 
It’s the chirp of sparrows in the nest 
after breaking out, celebrating. It’s not fair.




Some Things You Can Never Repair 


We were repairing the sagging porch. 
“It’s dangerous to fall in love,” says the man, 
“it means you will fall hard.” 
We had ripped off all the warped boards 
and installing a fifteen degree incline. 


There were yellow poppies as far as we could see. 
Evening would be coming home soon. 
After a while we would not be able to see to nail. 
There was the smell of wet peat moss 
ripening like a hand releasing secrets. 


His wife was finally resting, her body curled 
like a tulip bulb. The stars went out 
like birthday candles. One last streak of purple 
dwindled like being raked. 


We talked about the close baseball game, 
the cost of vegetables today, oldie music. 
Our words and hands refused to quit. 
Neither of us could talk about the obvious — 
his wife was shrinking into herself until she died.



In a Lifetime 


the sky folds like an accordion 
squeezing the lingering light out 


life moves this way 
a hay wagon 


that last sunlight is a strawberry 
closing in the darkening window 


under the wooden covered bridge 
brackish waters move a moon’s image 


there are so many ways to live 
there are more ways to die



Why Darkness Whimpers 


A longing becomes impossibly larger, 
gnawing at the underbrush 
like a person biting off syllables 
when telling us less than necessary. 


Darkness only wanted to find its way home, 
but blindness made it tap here 
and here, smelling for the familiar, 
sounds echoing off what was missing. 


It is the way absence converges with remoteness, 
strained in its sense of direction, 
and darkness missed what it did not have anymore. 
This story does not end well. 


Wherever darkness went, it never knew where to stay. 
How many of us experience this loss at least once? 
Whatever vanishes is not always permanently gone 
as long as we hope for regaining what is missing.



copyright 2016, Martin Willitts Jr.

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About the Author:

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, NY. His poems have appeared in Blue Fifth Review, About Place, Kentucky Review, Perfume River Review, Bitter Oleander, Tipton Poetry Review, Black Poppy Review, Nine Mile Magazine, Comstock Review, Centrifugal Eye, Stone Canoe, and others. He is the winner of 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; 2014 Broadsided award; 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Award; and, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice. He has over 20 chapbooks, plus 11 full-length collections including “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press, 2016). His forthcoming books include “Dylan Thomas and the Writing Shed” (FutureCycle Press) and “Three Ages of Women” (Deerbrook Press).