My poet’s pen is a bit dried up of late. Not sure why.  This poem form last year gets at some of the feelings of trying to make something happen that isn’t happening. I like the suggested submission to the concrete shards on the urban beach most. Something about smoothed over brokenness seems to be needed right now, at least in me.

Forcing it

I threw a rotting catfish from the shore
Beneath Tacony and Palmyra Bridge
Because I didn’t want the fly and gore
Assault on my contriving hermitage —
Of rivershine views from my driftwood seat
With bright sun strobing off rippling peaks.

My pen is poised on journal page to mete
Out ev’ry chance sublimity I seek.

The rounded concrete shards, a pebble beach
Below me, listen for a word from God,
But they are better chosen for the speech –
My thoughts are gravely too, but broke for laud.

This poem cannot make the river wide,
And that flung fish will come back with the tide.

September 2019

Poem and image by Ben White