Friday, May 20, 2016

Poetry By Apryl Fox

Apryl Fox has been published previously in Strange Horizons, Poetry Repairs, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, and Offcourse Magazine, and  currently resides in Michigan. 


It Seems.

I laugh because he has half a mind

to think I would be cool with what he says,

about bridges and waterways and other

cool stuff like that.  Today we went out to

brunch, and it made me think of Florence

on the Food Channel, making tea and scones

and cutting big pieces of cheddar.  What once

was lost was never found, but other things

were found indeed, we replaced the lost

telekinesis, and broke up the sod with a hoe

and rake.  The garden was soon going to be

ready, and my chef made olives and peanuts

from scratch, I guess they were from the market,

El Sol, on Broadway Street, where I used to

hang out as a teenager, asking people for money

while I sang-old songs, mind you, but they were

still sweet, as sweet as they could be, and I saw

old married couples walking hand in hand,

and singing, and a brisk puppy walking down

the sidewalk, a man holding on to his leash

with his head up high, looking straight, nor right

nor left.  Some days are better than others.

------

A Summer Rain.

The rain smells of wet dew.

I am quiet with realization.

The sadness is in the cold, wet grass.

I have found my vision.

We can relate to the things of this world-

and the next, and the next.

Speed comes with thinking.  I don't think without

feeling.  He comes in the night, wearing a

dark parka.  He feels me in the cool dawn.

The summer rain splatters on the ground.

It makes a soft, sweet sound.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think things have gone from here.

Take me or leave me, I wouldn't know.

There is a space in my arms below.

How high can I fly, these words sing to me.

I am embarrassed by hope, set on by fear.

Take me as I am, leave the rest behind you-or near.

A summer rain falls down, down.

--------

Winding Down the Hours.

Like open doorways, I mix and mingle, I drive soiled tears

Through linen sheets. Peace is not with me; a heart is not open,

I quietly rekindle my tears, the heartache beats steady.

I wish I could bring myself out of this stupor, but nothing

Will relinquish this pain that is held on me, when my heart beats

Steadily, the thrum thrum of my heart. Who am I. 

Shadows are thrown on open doorways; daylight moves in through

The open window, where a flower has fallen on a cold moaning

Of wind. This life is not forbidden, this love is not forbidden,

Nor is my heart, it beats like shadows and rivers,

Words are tossed into open wounds. 

Clouds move and shift;

Secrets plummet into the world like warbled voices,

Caught in an updraft of makeshift promise. I do not know how

To say this, do not know how to speak the words that claw

Inside my chest, to say the things that must be spoken.

There is only the window, and the flower on the sill-

The darkness that thrums, and a cold winter chill.

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