The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Tim Suermondt
Bogues
Everything is blooming outside the open window of my study in this small French village. Paris has given me permission to take some time off, well aware that I’ll always return. A few bugs fly into the room and like a Chinese poet I’m determined to put them in a poem— More poems about bugs than politics might be useful, far less harmful. The sunlight squeezed between the green hills shines on my first line and the bugs resting on the windowsill are putting on their tiny glasses—leaning in with their feelers on high, in anticipation of where my poem might take us all. Rembrandt Still Painting Even the great artist can’t always achieve the impossible— his self-portrait must be of an old man, youth lost in the dark brushstrokes. He contemplates giving himself a smile to brighten the dourness as he walks to the studio door, opening it to survey the snowflakes starting to blanket the streets and canals. Two young women, arm-in-arm, pass by— he salutes them but they don’t respond. He closes the door, forgetting that smile by the blush of nightfall. Hotel Action Rain denting the world this morning, the sun in exile. My love is getting dressed while I stare down the avenue, people and umbrellas parading past the once modern cinema. A man holding a bouquet of roses twirls to music on his headphones, my kind of man as the old song goes. “I’m ready,” she says, slinging her purse over her shoulder and I slip on my shoes, prepared to follow her, anywhere.
Almost Next Door
Maybe God has a house.The house slants on a hill— that’s His I’ll bet. Sly of Him to hide in the open. If I bring over a pie will it mitigate my asking Him why suffering exists when He can end it forever with a forceful nod— How neighborly can a deity be expected to be? Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |