Before Completion: 5 Poems

 

These revised poems Copyright © 2010 by Michael Smetzer

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Before Completion

 

The vibrations of trains come up the old wood frame

from the tracks a block north.

Trains whistle through the window cracks.

 

Lying under an old blanket

in the unheated upstairs.

The dampness rising from the Kansas River.

In the garret strangeness of someone else’s house.

How did I arrive among these old flood-washed timbers?

 

(first published in Tellus)

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After You Left

 

Two days of freezing rain.

 

The car glazed fast to the clay.

The snow hardened, gray as the sky.

 

But today a fat cabbie

flies a kite in the park.

It dips in the Kansas wind

like his chins.

 

(first published in Wind)

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Shadows

 

Go into the snow.

Let the snow drift about your ears

and listen to the stillness at night.

Go when the snow is soft and silent,

and the stars are behind the clouds.

Walk in the silent dark.

Feel the cold,

the vagueness under foot,

the blackness above and beside you.

Know you are alone with my shadow in the dark

as I am alone now

with your shadow

in my heart.

 

(first published in Kansas Quarterly) 

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At Noon

 

At noon I venture down to the stream.

I sit on a rock and throw clods

        into the current:

Small twigs and insects, leaves and

        soil

swirl down the shallow creek.

The oaks creak slowly above

and sun spots preen the grass.

On the other shore, the eyes of

        small creatures

rise like hope in the shadows.

 

(first published in Cottonwood Review)

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Breathing

 

An animal sleeps beside me in the dark.

Its breathing swells the sheets.

It turns and nuzzles the pillow,

then the rhythm resumes.

When I take its paw the fingers close.

We breathe into the night.

 

(first published in Cottonwood Review)