Saint Julian Press Poet

Thomas Simmons

 

NOW

 

I have been waiting years to tell you.

And now you are, as you have always been.

 

I see the deliberate trail you have left

Among the hostas, the day lilies, the not–yet.

 

The way you look down and back,

As if all our past were just that trail.

 

And it was. You have stepped out of all

The simulacra that you were at just

 

The moment I stepped out of mine.

So. Lately I have wondered at the way

 

Poems so imperfectly stand in—not

Something. The way poems are not.

 

And here you are. That was not. . .yet

All you needed was to hear me say it.

 

 

 

SPLITTING APART

 

Today the colors became ashamed.

A mere four days ago. . .But no,

It was over. The green became grey,

 

And the gold grey, even the street--

Absence of color—went from black

To grey. Shame. The relinquishing

 

Of an adequate claim upon life, forced

By others, other forces. To what purpose,

Thus, the deep luxuries of navy, sea surface

 

Full of clouds, or the sensuous allure

Of burgundy? Foretold—“the dark lines

Are about to mount upward and overthrow

 

The last, firm light line”--I Ching, 23.

Do we turn from prophecy? Not nature.

Although, to be fair, when we fight,

 

Unlike nature, we do not always acquiesce.

Someone is doomed, not necessarily

The shamed one—Hester Prynne:

 

“Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!”

But he did not. That is how he died, as she

Returned to her truth and the turning point:

 

“The powerful light that has been banished

Returns.” Abject surrender reminds us

In part of the loss, but in part of the terrible

 

Risk of surrender. Whatever it was, its future

Inhered in what immediately followed, the scarlet

Of the “A” and not the “A,” nor what it meant.

 

 

 

 


PRESS RELEASE

POET

 

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NOW  by Thommas Simmons  *  ISBN-13: 978-0-9986404-0-2
  *  ISBN 10: 0-9986404-0-9

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Phone: 281-734-8721 * Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * www.saintjulianpress.com