NORTHEAST MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
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A Cargo of Green Hearts
~POEMS~

the darkest night

12/24/2016

 
on this night of the proverbial
manger and doors slammed on
the faces of the blessed it is
not necessary that you believe
in virgin births or the tight script
of canonical texts or (especially)
whatever you have been told
you must believe or die
not believing. it is enough to inhale
the scent of old hay and animal
dung, feel the stars gesture with
faint arms of light on the most
lightless of nights and wonder
if something blessed should be
given birth to among the shuffling
homeless of the streets or your heart
would you know it? or bolt the door?
the donkey brays in his stall
discordantly, a cold wind
finds all the cracks in the jackleg
door and makes short work of
them, the wise men come
make unrecorded pronouncements
and then they go. none but you
will ever know they visited.
no one will ever believe you.
for you alone they have come.
yes, it is hard to hope for new stars
when there are rats in the walls
and now the ceiling, orangutans
squatting in places of power
oil oozing from open wounds.
always, there have been murderers.
always, someone with a kind
face is born on a slate cold night.
the struggle goes on, will go on
forever regardless if it is the
nightfall your heart chooses
to wait for or the dawn.


12/15/2016

12/15/2016

 
the world goes brittle
in December, month like a
doorstop made of ice.
if a heart cracks now
it does so to its tapered
root. what is slammed
shatters. what is struck
turns to dust. the dry air
begs for the longest kiss.
listen to my plan--if we
draw close breast and
breast like shivering birds
do and breathe like we
are dancing in an old library
and touch the way pine
needles rub their thin
fingers together in the
wind, if we draw this circle
tightly so perhaps the
morning will find us buried
under a white blanket
alive and grown wise and
full on the delicate edge
of love.

12/6/2016

12/6/2016

 
shall I call your bluff? lie down
under your stars, your moon?
let your lips run the ladder
of my vertebrae? your chin rest
in the orbit of my clavicle?
such a tender spot, so close to
the neck. and the neck, ah well
the neck speaks for itself.
at this age we are such
storied stories, such novels of being.
this is just a page or paragraph
the sweet spot the book has
opened to cause you to look up
and gaze out the window.
do you wonder now what it would
be to stop reading, to follow
the path of your breathe and
pointy stars into dusk under the
moon-glyphed meadows
where it is too dark to parse
letters and all that is left for you
to do is feel?

12/3/16

12/3/2016

 
the kiss lasts forever
if you refuse to stop
kissing the ocean
goes on forever if the horizon
spites your certainty
the trees go all the way
down and up speak
sky raise your face call
the sun I’m holding out
my hands for more
power is knowing it’s thin
ice everywhere stomp
your foot stomp both
feet take hold of your drowning
don’t be a victim of
death don’t look for me in the
house of eternal
sorrow knitting plastic
pessimism I’m walking
river-ward over glass broken
bloodied as berries the promised
land doesn’t need these sorry
feet when wild
thoughts lift me like air
the cut banks and
point bars the leaning willows
the humming frogs
all have the same song whatever
helps you to reach in the sea
whatever breakage the dam takes
heart I am strong in your maroon
shadow I refuse to kneel to no
woman but you and no man
but myself.

12/2/16

12/2/2016

 
when at last the trees
let drop their summer
dresses the creeks
and stones stand out
and sing. love, you are
more of this when bare.

12/1/16

12/1/2016

 
December, again I crawl
       through your drawn out
            twelve the way the minute
                 hand on a clock
                       agonizes on a delinquent
                              lover. your old
                                     sorrow, too many numerals
                                            too many ways to divide you.
                                                   January, come soon.
                                                          roll with me singleminded
                                                                 in your cool white sheet.

    Poetry Log

    Poems  are posted here when I'm ready to share them. I often don't title my poems. The date you see above the poem may be the date it was posted here and not necessarily the date it was created.  To see more, click on the Archives below. 

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    Unless otherwise noted, all content ©Paul-William Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs license.
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