Saint Julian Press Poet

Thomas Simmons

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THE BODY OF HOPE

 

Embodied, we tend either to discount it

Or to think it strange and foreign, a persistent

Nuisance––the place we scratch repeatedly

 

Without knowing why, the certain shiver

We feel when, next to us, a certain stranger

Sits down on the bus.  That sense, paradoxically,

 

Of being "out of body"––not really possible,

Of course, unless one is also immanently subtle

In one's presence.  Here you are. And quietly,

 

As if a breeze had crossed the entire Sea of Galilee

And stopped where you are sitting at the outdoor cafe,

Here I am.  This was my privilege and my right, to die

 

To show you we can come and go, as we choose.

We worry so much. . .What will the children lose

If we go?  The children of suicides watch silently

 

Over their broken stories. The stories are fine,

Though loss is grief and grief quotidian. . .

Here I am.  It is not illusion or desire alone,

 

This feeling that you have.  I am not in your

Imagination. However far you feel, I am as near

As your heart is lost––at once the recompense, the cost.

 

 

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PRESS RELEASE

POET

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Available soon through  ~  IndieBound ~ Ingram Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Fine Book Distributors & Retailers

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