The Mixture As Before
Poems by Perry L. Powell
Findings
Yet metal
is best found by wood
glass by paper
air
after rain
scriptures
sculpted in sand
and a search for clarity
in this, that, and the other
gray flesh
and black blood
gave light to nothing
and life to light
somewhere love pays
in silver for leaves
and you will know
after
and after again.
Entanglement
The back story for the best dreams
goes like this: when on the slowest
day of the year, clouds, thunder and
heavy winds start, with you alone
standing on the porch and tasting
that flat taste in your mouth, the one
with which you are most familiar
Then - particle across the threshold -
that moment of superposition
where the woman in blue jeans leans
into the door jamb to smile and
to sigh with a sound that takes
forever to die while your heart
is forever knotted in her arms.
Children of the Island
No one left remembers when
the mothers left, and we are
killing the last sad fathers.
Children rule our island now;
tell me again, if you please,
how this liberates my soul.
Brotherhood and Sisterhood
of Man, yes, but oh! the rise
of that sibling rivalry.
Lightly
Like a shawl
lightly,
the lavender bloated
wisteria wraps round
the shoulders of the old
oak
and he,
bent, doddering, professor,
peers
down
at the sun splattered stark
white
dogwood blossoms
as if
new
from Plato's cave.
What It's Like
It's like the last gardenia in fall
withering under that last breath.
It's like that moment
you're watching a horror movie
and you fall asleep
and the dream that comes then.
It's like carrying your bucket of water
for that fire you can't find.
I tell you I am no Argus Panoptes;
and I cannot take infinite care.
But some of us, it seems, must see and must take and bear
responsibility.
Because in the end a life
is only one life;
a death
is only one death
and love is only one reason
to see it all through.
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