THE POET – Featured Poetry – July 2022

Featured Poetry – JULY, 2022


HOMELAND

By Marilyn Longstaff (ENGLAND)

My little father was a ‘man of Sussex’, his town

East Grinstead and his ancestry quite static,

a line of labourers and domestic servants

all from the tiny triangle of Groombridge,

Ashurstwood and Forest Row. His mum,

my granny, once the daughter of a tanner,

became a champion of the poor, and now

she features in the town museum, clad

in her ‘Army’ uniform. Councillor, poet,

mother of eight children, she raised

her growing family in the ranks, and named

my father, William Bramwell, for The Founder.

When Dad was called to service in God’s Army,

to storm the forts of darkness down in Plymouth,

up to Darlington and all points in-between,

he left his home and made us rootless, scattered.

And we who sojourn in these northern uplands –

adopt its accent, marry out and change our names –

are branches of that family tree, the Finches,

Sargeants, Crowhursts and the Wellers.

We couldn’t be more Sussex if we tried.

First published in Articles of War (Smokestack Books 2015)

END

➡️ Xem thêm: Tờ 2 đô may mắn không? 2$ 1776, 1976 giá bao nhiêu?

Marilyn Longstaff’s work has appeared in a number of magazines, anthologies and on the web, she has written five books of poetry, and is a member of the writing, performing and publishing collective Vane Women. 

E: [email protected]

W: www.vanewomen.co.uk

FB: @marilyn.longstaff.9

MY DAD SHOWS UP IN RUINS IN CARSULAE

Tonya Lailey (CANADA)

Through oaks there is stone

and thigh-high meadow

and summer beginning to smell

like itself and there is my dad off

on a tangent off where the path

over rock is dirt and roots trip

the pound in it and maple walnut ash

and sassafras take turns and after

turning and turning around down here

anyone would come to the edge

and anyone would feel the takedown

in the water from the table rocks

where he must have stood

where my sister and I ran

to find him my toast-dry throat

my tongue rank in hours ago eaten

egg bacon coffee my dad missing

for those hours along the bank

the river we did not know my sister

and I crashing into the shock wave

of it I hauled the word dad again

and again from my mouth

that seemed to end in itself

my voice unfit for the job

my sister calling over tourists

who acted aimless against my legs

firing through the woods

going past each tree

my voice couldn’t climb

the whirlpool’s thunder spiral

where my dad must not have gone

could not have taken my childhood

could not have fallen

the heave-scrape of the lid

the gape in the sarcophagus

the dark opening

over rock bottom

my dad’s charcoal-stained lips

in the hospital

his stone-washed eyes

his blotched spotted skin

a skin I now grow into

how rivers bed

how a river beds

Via Flaminia in May

a river.

END

Tonya Lailey completed her MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia, and writes fiction, essays and poetry. 

E: [email protected]

Facebook: @laileyt

THE HEART OF GUILTY MAN

By Mathews Mhango (MALAWI)

Hands crossed on my weakened and guilty heart

As l figure out the loss of love

The guilt of my actions

Keep playing in the back of my mind

Like a horror movie

They give me nightmares

They reality I have to face with no funfair

The love I cherished and loved most

Keeps drifting away from me

As dews on a patch of grass melting

To the scorching sun, burning my heart

The skeletons in the closet, are really mine

And keep scaring me, haunting me

A reminder of the pain

I have caused in this love journey

As Ii am fighting the demons that keep staring

At me when I look at the mirror

A true reminder of my actions

I am fighting for my redemption

To gain the love that I have lost

The pain to lose this love

Is too much to bear

Looking from a distance as it drifts away

Like a sun setting in a distance horizon

With the spark of love that still remains

In my weaken and guilty heart for this love

Am fighting for the redemption of this love

That I can heal and gain this lost love with you

So the pain of your sorrowful heart to all be memories.

END

➡️ Câu nói hay về vé số hay và độc đáo nhất tại đây. Chắc hẳn bạn đã nghe qua nó từ những người bán dạo trên đường phố.

Mathews Mhango is an Internal Auditor by profession working in the public sector. He likes to write poetry on different issues that affect society. 

E: [email protected]

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE NIGHT

By Eduard Schmidt-Zorner (REPUBLIC OF IRELAND)

One day you wake up

and realise you are alive.

It is such a mind-blowing feeling,

that at first you cannot discern it.

Family and relatives enraptured

and delighted surround the child’s bed.

First, I saw only black and white

like the fields of the chessboard.

The ‘King’ and the ‘Queen’

who looked at me,

Then the ‘Rooks’ and ‘Pawns’,

uncles and aunts,

opened the view to colour

when snow and ice disappear

in the coldest month of the year,

me, born into ruins and poverty

as a quasi-new beginning.

A fibrillation of hope.

Shy, peculiar, and quiet

the little child.

There are already images

in the mind

that are a foundation,

to build a life on,

a predestination.

END

Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, haiku, and short stories. He writes in four languages, and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose, and experimental poetry.

E: [email protected]

FAMILY OF TREES

By S. D. Kilmer

Have you never seen

A solitary tree?

Even the Joshua Tree

Is never alone in the Mohave Desert.

There are families of trees.

They nurture one another.

They shade the youngest.

They preserve the eldest.

Self-perseverance together.

This is a family whose roots

Are known, grow deep in the earth.

They know their place.

They know their race.

Roots that are interwoven

One tree with the other.

Identity is assured.

A familial community

With all the right virtues.

Where might there be

A similar family among humanity

With all the right virtues?

END

➡️ Xem thêm: Những câu nói hay của thầy Thích Pháp Hòa

S. D. Kilmer is a retired Existential/Pastoral Therapist, Pastoral Care Specialist, and Family Conflict Mediator, and has been writing poetry since 1968.

E: [email protected]

W: www.SDKilmer.com

WAIT A MINUTE

By Lali Tsipi Michaeli (ISRAEL)

Translated from Hebrew by Oded Peled.

I want to release you. I’m not holding you here by force

but

Until I get to my place I want to tell you about a place without a place

I want to tell you about the dove I rescued today in the stairwell.

I do not know from which hole she entered to land exactly

On my inherited floor

but

I created a momentary conversation with her between good friends. Maybe more than that

She listened to my whispers. You were wounded by your death. She stopped flying from height to height. Did not move.

I built trust with you.

You do not understand what nobility was

In this painful state

but

Before the connection was made she really went berserk

She slammed her head into a grid that caught her neck as she came in and out, she went in and out

Couldn’t get out of the trap

I wanted to hold her softly

Lower her and release

but

Suddenly I saw a hole

Of poured water

A large hole blocked in two bricks

I took out the bricks and using my body movements

I made her fly there

The stream of air that drew her

She went in and got stuck in the middle. A real purgatory

And out of fear that she would regret it

And come back

I laid down a first brick

From the repulsion she flew

I immediately laid down the second brick

And I wanted to cry with great happiness that I succeeded in this delusional situation and with great sorrow

For the eternal moment between me and her

I was released.

that’s it. I bought candles in Jaffa.

I can grieve now.

END

Lali Tsipi Michaeli has published six poetry books, has attended a number of international poetry festivals, and was part of a residency program for talented writers in New York.

E: [email protected]

FB: @1000007433293l

WHAT ARE THE CULTURAL AND LITERARY IMPLICATIONS OF

COEXISTENCE WITH FOREIGNERS, RELATIVES AND OTHERS?

By Douglas Colston (AUSTRALIA)

To give,

in addition to minute talent,

coexists with the optimal potential of each emerging moment –

education harmonising the humanities is significant …

‘to be’ is something!

Participation or interference

(including agreement, supporting, befriending,

fighting, coping, comparing, electing or choosing),

alienation, distance and exclusion

is scattered everywhere.

Physical, psychological and moral qualities or conditions

together with cherishing, harbouring or retaining

clarity, truth and certainty

repeatedly changes and transforms

(in short, it is ‘enlightenment’ or ‘civility’).

Gentle, kind, peaceful and temperate patterns

(including writing, social phenomenon and etiquette),

learning, knowledge, meaning, sense,

charity, freedom, justice and morality

are perfect

and miscellaneous.

Tiny and insignificant groups of poems

(or people [including troops])

are artificial –

they are made by humans, false, misleading and unnatural.

Anticipating or expecting repetition

to add up to commodities or currency

conceals the ‘target’

(the optimal potential

of each emerging moment).

Existing with charity, love and kindness scattered everywhere

alienates conflict.

Fighting foreigners, relatives and others rapidly causes –

respectfully –

castration (metaphorically).

‘Being’ is the goal.

Patterns become echoes.

Patterns realising, learning, comprehending, understanding and studying

sense, meaning, and right conduct

are perfect …

of course!

END

Douglas Colston holds a BA, a BSc and a post-graduate Psychology qualification. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction has been published online and in print, in addition to appearing in a number of anthologies.

FB: @douglas.colston

WELCOME TO THE WORLD. SORRY ABOUT THE MESS

By Lawrence Hopperton (CANADA)

smile and look to me

shudder and ecstasy

sing your worried

grey-green moods

back-lit, wind gold

cradled and skies

roil, rain drives

synchronous tree-bent

cadences and nuzzles

this private crook

END

Lawrence Hopperton is the retired Founding Director of Distributed Learning at Tyndale University in Toronto. He has had a number of books published, and his work has appeared in literary journals worldwide.

E: [email protected]

W: www.enroutebooksandmedia.com/tableforthree/

BROKEN

By Kathy Sherban (CANADA)

Fam Jam

intricate beast

fire breathing

tricky peace

One, two

gut punch luv

tongues workin

push ‘n shove

Twisted sista’z

rank ‘n file

prodigal son’z

apple child

Madd clan

pedigree plus

blood transfusion

parental bust

END

➡️ Xem thêm: Phong cách sáng tác của Xuân Diệu “Ông hoàng thơ tình”

Kathy Sherban is a poet and author, and her work has been published in several global anthologies and international literary magazines. 

W: www.kathysherban.ca

FB: @Kat’s Poetry Korner

FB: @kats_kradle

Instagram: @kat_s_kradle

Twitter: @kathysherban

 

THE HUMAN PROMISE

By David Sparenberg (USA)

When the Human Promise shut her eyes

she saw what was unseen – heart

of the human heart – soul

of the human soul. Light

like the softness of flowers shone

around everyone whose task in

life was truth and within

every deed done for sake of the

goodness of life. Keeping the Possible open.

When she opened her mouth

a river flowed out

joining the ocean of light. In

the melodious waters of

life a river of fire

turned pain into smoke. Anguish

of cruelty was washed to ashes.

When the Human Promise opened her eyes

she saw the person beside her

simple and smiling and

quietly responding in talk of peace – a

sounding of intimate dialogue, spontaneously

ignited between them and us

with the freedom of laughter.

Eyes of concord shone

with a poem of letting go

in poetry of belonging, letting

be. Poems repeated, chanted

to keep the Possible open.

When the Human Promise opened

her heart

thorns that had been the

source of suffering

became roses. Every rose

flowered into a tree of life. Every

tree took root

in a cornucopia of compassion. Compassion’s

fruit is justice. The fruit-seeds fall

onto the grounds of salvific orchards.

Rivers meander gently, slowly, natively

unobstructed through valleys of

black soil. Sun has become the tenderest lover.

Those who but sought

power amid trash amid trinkets knotted

in the clasp of death were

surrendered to death. Those who built

tabernacles in the wilderness of

love gathered at the prayers of life.

Allegiance holds fast

to bring love home at last -at last!

to the scorned and the scorched and the homeless Earth

END

David Sparenberg is an author and internationally publishing essayist and eco-poet, living in the Pacific Northwest.

E: [email protected]

A HORRIBLE HIDE AND SEEK

By Vanessa Caraveo (USA / MEXICO)

A child sobs into her cell phone,

sending one last text home.

In the background, gunshots,

as a disgruntled student roams.

Whether you blame it on stress,

lack of guidance, or bullying,

the end result is all that matters.

And this end will be worrying.

How many dead and gone today?

Less or more than tomorrow?

Families wait outside in horror

for news of fresh scars and sorrows.

She never gets to finish the message

and a few words are left unsaid.

It’s hard to comfort your mother

when you’re already dead.

END

Vanessa Caraveo is an author, published poet, and artist who has a passion for promoting inclusion for all and helping others discover the power within them to overcome adversity. 

BIOLOGICAL

By Kirsty Niven (SCOTLAND)

My little nieces come round;

dolls come to life,

and the clock ticks and ticks.

They look up at me with anime eyes,

it gets louder and louder.

A bomb counting down.

END

Kirsty Niven’s writing has been published in several anthologies, journals and magazines, and two of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

E: [email protected]

Instagram: @kanivenpoetry

IMPRESSIONS IN SAWDUST

By Betty Naegele Gundred (USA)

He takes a pencil from behind his ear

and draws a quick line

on a two-by-four of Douglas fir.

Sawdust flurries carpet the floor

as his saw ruzzes back and forth.

With a hand plane he peels off wood

like carrot curls. They pinwheel down

to greet me.

Our attic is under construction.

“Come over here,” he says,

and points to a level on the door frame.

He shows me how the bubble sits 

like a “monkey in the middle.”

I hand him nails, one at a time,

listening to his hammer jam

in staccato rhythm.

Awestruck, I look up at this man,

my father.

More sawdust rains down

as he brushes off his shirt and trousers.

“Enough for today,” he says,

and heads downstairs

with the thump, thump

of heavy footsteps.

On the floorboards, I notice

a trail of footprints,

faint outlines of work boots

dotted with tread,

an impression of him only . . .

my heart full remembering

he was so much more than that.

END

➡️ Xem thêm: Tuyển tập thơ Xuân Diệu về tình yêu đôi lứa, quê hương

Betty Naegele Gundred has enjoyed writing since high-school when she was editor of her school’s literary magazine. She received her B.S. from Cornell University and her M.S. from Michigan State, and taught middle-school science for 20 years.

E: [email protected]

FB: @bettynaegelegundred

POUR FÉLICITER

By Pavol Janik Ph.D. (SLOVAKIA)

Translated into English by Zuzana Sasovova.

May everyone be happy,

who owns love,

who is not home alone

but surrounded by their family.

Enjoy together

all festivities.

Let the New Year’s spirit prevail.

END

Pavol Janik Ph.D., is a poet, dramatist, prose writer, translator, publicist and copywriter. He has worked at the Ministry of Culture (1983-1987), and in media and advertising. His works have been published worldwide.

E: [email protected]

W: www.pavoljanik.sk

THE JANGLED WORLD

By Mark Evan Chimsky (USA)

You make your uncertain way down

the long hall of days

as if in a house that belongs to someone else.

But when you sit at the piano, your fingers prod

the keys and out of the clatter

a ribbon of melody floats up

like poetry rising from a chaos of words.

Your eyes once held me in dim recognition

and I was grateful that my name lingered still

in so far a place within—a shining prize

in the dark reach of a cave.

I laid out the blue pills and the red capsules

as if they were pieces from one of our old board games.

“Give me the nicest ones,” you would say,

smiling so I would not see

how small choices have their tyrannies.

I think of how you would be

in a different century, a jangled world

when there was nothing

to subdue the nightly terrors

or stop the whispers in the mind;

a time when sand ticked each second

and leeches pricked the skin.

Now, without the plain count of the daily regimen –

blue pills, red capsules – you

can’t find my name at all

and you shudder, cursing the stranger

who holds your hand and calls himself your son.

END

Mark Evan Chimsky‘s poetry and essays have appeared in publications worldwide. Mark is also a recipient of the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award as New/Emerging Poet.

FB: @MarkEvanChimsky

SECRETS OF LAUNDRY DAY

By Rohan Facey (JAMAICA)

On Laundry day

She pulled secrets from his pockets:

a forgotten note, a crumpled photo of a woman

as breath-taking as the latest model of a luxury car,

loose threads; along with candy wrappers.

She saw also – lip prints on a snowy cotton shirt

she had pressed two mornings ago

Dirty Linen

tumbled before her –

defying the power of detergents.

➡️ Xem thêm: Các đồng chí ngẩng cao đầu nhằm thẳng quân thù mà bắn đây là câu nói nổi tiếng của ai

END

Rohan Facey is a high-school teacher and a multiple-award winning contemporary poet, songwriter and playwright. He has contributed to both local newspapers and international anthologies.

E: [email protected]

OUR SPRING ROMANCE

By Rubilyn Bollion Cadao (HONG KONG/PHILIPPINES)

Flowers bud in thy delight

in crimson, radiant and bright.

As flowers bloom with thy sweet smile,

my heart flutters not just for a while.

As love blossoms like petals budding,

my heart gleams with the grace of Spring.

Petals unfold as you hold me close,

Your tender kiss, gives my heart a dose.

With the silver rays of the sunshine, we slide.

As the flowers flicker as we dance and glide.

Buds blossom with thy delight,

and blooms with thy love’s pure light.

Captivating my heart to fall,

with your endearing heartbeat’s call.

As the spring grace the season dearly,

our hearts entangled true and clearly.

Our love prospered as we take a reason,

flourished through the freshness of the season

Like the bees swamped buzzing over the flowers,

you conquered my heart, guarding it forever.

END

Rubilyn Bollion Cadao is Filipino, and works as a domestic worker in Hong Kong. She started writing poems when she was in high-school; writing about love, nature and life’s struggles.

FB: @dux illinois

UNTITLED

By Abd al-Karim (NETHERLANDS)

Translated by Catherine Cobham

I want to say here what could not be said there

In that room where there were three of us

Refugee, interrogator, translator

This is the disappointment that precedes regret

A lesson in extreme eloquence

That says clearly

Your arrival at your destination

Doesn’t have to mean you’ve survived

It’s disappointment whose exact number I don’t know

But it’s less than a shock

After all we’re living in Dante’s Inferno

In the time of black comedy

When nothing is as it should be

I am a boat from the third world

A boat that shows signs of sinking

A thread shaking in the womb of a needle

A poet who has built his ruined world in instalments

In streets where dogs die of heart attacks

In poems always selected for rejection

In demonstrations that I escaped from alive by sheer chance

On posters that read “Tomorrow will be ours”

In the drawings of Van Gogh that icon

Who experienced another kind of pain when he cut off his ear

As a reaction to bouts of hysteria

In bars where we forget everything

I’m a poet

Who writes to mountains that show signs of withering

Who plays tunes that rustle in the ear of dying flowers

Plays madly

On a matchbox

The matchbox where thirty or more streets have settled

A poet

Who believes to some extent in the sanctity of colours that vanish one after the other

In the resurrection of rivers subjected to arbitrary arrest

And believes more in Cavafy’s terrifying words

Since your life is ruined there it’s ruined everywhere

Nothing can resist this absolute refusal

I realise that or almost

But something had to be said

It was possible the pain would be excised here

It was possible that tomorrow

Would be an extraordinary day

And it was possible

That I would gain a little peace of mind so I could shout

Through loudspeakers I’ve done it

But

This place is not mine

There’s another country involved

And Dublin is the holy god of fingerprints

As you say

These evocative words do not change fates

But they do what they can and more

I accept the refusal but I cannot accept the reason …

END

Abd al-Karim is currently seeking asylum in the Netherlands.

E: [email protected]

 

BLACK HOLE

By Janelle Finamore (USA)

Rushing towards extinction on a Ferris wheel of doubt

The heavy night air like an elephant thickens my heart with lust

You look in the mirror at the unmasked moon and beg for its glow

The wind clothed in desperation and desire striving to become a quiet monk

You strangle the wind while the circles whir, us a tangled mess

Licking my wounds as the darkness swallows us into it’s mouth.

 

We fear a black hole ending

As we move recklessly, sliding down the throat of the night sky.

END

Janelle Finamore is a musician, poet, teacher, and fairy-tale writer. Her writing is inspired by the beat poets, and has published internationally.

E: [email protected]

LONELINESS

By Francisco Azuela (MEXICO).

To the Tarahumara, indigenous Rarámuris from northern Mexico.

Translation from Spanish by the poet Reynaldo Marcos Padua.

Now that the song of the birds is gone

And at night, the storm

Has a pitiful and lonely barking of dogs,

And love has withered.

Loneliness I know you, at last.

 

Goddess of silence and of a hollow branch,

Ere once the birds wove their nests.

 

Great deaths appear to my mind,

Immense characters

And their glorious times.

 

Kings, poets and warriors,

The freedom of the nations has been very high,

Blood has flowed

As much as the rivers that flow into the deep sea.

 

A strange insect has prowled your soul

And you have gone with him

In an act of devotion so similar to an absence.

 

You’ve already forgiven great injustices.

The mutilated men claim

Their right to be heard,

And only you can feel a bitter wind

Breaking your heart in the deserted mountains.

 

Be brave, comrade of the dawn.

It ´s not far the awakening;

You can interpret all the illusions of these people,

This village immersed in the poverty of life;

Make sing again the white blackbird of old solitudes,

Make it be heard the song of the goldfinches

And of the troubadours,

May the world turn it´s face

To be grafted onto the afternoon spike

Where a sun dreaming of hope is setting.

 

Make that dawn chant and so with it your soul.

 

END

Multi-published, multi award-winning Francisco Azuela is a writer and acclaimed poet. He served as a diplomat in the Mexican Embassy in Costa Rica,and later in Honduras.

FB: @francisco.azuela.1

OUR SPRING ROMANCE

By Rubilyn Bollion Cadao (HONG KONG / PHILIPPINES)

Flowers bud in thy delight

in crimson, radiant and bright.

As flowers bloom with thy sweet smile,

my heart flutters not just for a while.

As love blossoms like petals budding,

my heart gleams with the grace of Spring.

Petals unfold as you hold me close,

Your tender kiss, gives my heart a dose.

With the silver rays of the sunshine, we slide,

As the flowers flicker as we dance and glide.

Buds blossom with thy delight,

and blooms with thy love’s pure light.

Captivating my heart to fall,

with your endearing heartbeat’s call.

As the spring grace the season dearly,

our hearts entangled true and clearly.

Our love prospered as we take a reason,

flourished through the freshness of the season.

Like the bees swamped buzzing over the flowers,

you conquered my heart, guarding it forever.

END

Rubilyn Bollion Cadao is Filipino, and works as a domestic worker in Hong Kong. She started writing poems when she was in high-school; writing about love, nature and life’s struggles.

E: [email protected]

FB: @dux illinois

AT FORTY

By Heidi Seaborn (USA)

I found failure or it found me

like moths to cashmere.

There’s running and then

there’s running away.

I perfected both.

You could tell by the way I laced

up my sneakers, set my iPod to Seal.

It was a time when I flew everywhere

but felt wingless. I look back and see

the sun had already burnt a hole

in my horizon at forty. Scorched

the garden but left the zinnias

to the buzz of teens. How alive

the hive of us. The five of us.

Or so we seemed to passersby.

But I’d already lingered too long—

past the happy hour’s fading smile,

past the bartender’s knuckles

rapping Last Call, gotten sloppy

on the hard liquor of our marriage.

I had only wanted to keep drinking

the champagne of my children,

bubbles rising.

END

After a raising three children and a long business career, Heidi  Seaborn started writing poetry in 2016. Today, she holds an MFA in Poetry and is an award-winning author of a number of titles.

FB: @heidiseaborn

 

THE MAN

By Sanda Ristić Stojanović (SERBIA)

Translation Sonja Asanović Todorović

The man,

protrudes into the idea of heaven as a register of pain,

he is palpated by the kinship of pain and chaos,

spawn by tectonic disturbances of words at

the plateaus of battles, sense, survival.

The man,

squeezed between two ideas of life and death,

the girdle of darkness tightens him, anticipating the protruding position of the word freedom.

Assaults of the afternoons, centuries, falls, seas

summarize him into themselves.

Uprisings of words, centuries, furrows of our speech

flow down the face of the revolution.

The man,

bold as blood and all what blood utters,

face to face with the metaphysics of tearing,

vower of the last surrealism of life,

filled from top to bottom

with honed symbols of earth and sky.

The man,

The node of the tide of the unspoken,

the flywheel of the diamonds of his own ruin,

removes the crown from the head of registrars of everything and

treads like fixing the gaze of angels and demons.

The man,

arose from the invention of time

organizes the metaphysics of rebellion in the dense content of angels and demons

END

Sanda Ristić-Stojanović graduated in philosophy, and is the author of 15 poetry books. Her poems and short stories have published in numerous collections of contemporary literature, and in several anthologies of poetry of the twenty-first century.

E: [email protected]

FEBRUARY ICE

Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain (USA)

After they buried her first-born

in the frozen earth

her second-born saw her become

a small birch that had borne

too much ice

bent way over

staring into the ground

as if she’d forgotten

where they’d lain the body.

Her husband remained rigid,

a maple with strong branches snapped,

ragged stumps in their place,

a broken symmetry.

The surviving son,

pulled from the passenger seat,

spent his life in futile repair

trying to straighten and mend,

ignoring their resentment

that he was the twig

neither bent nor broken.

END

Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain is former academic, software entrepreneur and intelligence officer. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and publications.

W: www.TomWillemain.com

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