Eye On Life Magazine

Make every day a beautiful day.

Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine.  Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.

Five Untitled Poems by Simon Perchik

 

                                                *

                                                You brush the way ink

                                                falls apart on a page

                                                though your hair never dries

 

                                                folded and unfolded, over and over

                                                till an old love note arrives

                                                in the crease you can’t see through

 

                                                already a floodgate

                                                and across a river

                                                that is no longer walls

 

                                                or their shadows —you are washed away

                                                by the lingering caress

                                                your foot leaves underneath

 

                                                as gravel :what all words hold back

                                                when they say it was long ago

                                                and her name as if she was here

 

                                                in writing and with a simple splash

                                                surrounds your still warm arm

                                                already in two, half you, half everything.

 

 

 

 

                                                *

                                                This cup must know its cracks

                                                will never let go

                                                struggles the way a spider

                                                begins as a single thread

                                                and water not yet water

 

                                                —you sip so the rim

                                                weakens from inside and the Earth

                                                empties, lies motionless

                                                left to hide among the afternoons

                                                although you drink from the dirt

                                                helpless to dry

                                                without your lips under it

 

                                                —this cup can’t go on

                                                and the spoon overhead

                                                circling tighter and tighter

                                                uncertain where to stop

 

                                                —mouthful by frayed mouthful

                                                you flow into a great river

                                                already leaving

                                                are carried along for later

                                                as if the sky was once your flesh

                                                won’t loosen its hold

                                                though you keep filling the cup

                                                with flowers, sunlight

                                                more and more flowers.

 

 

 

 

                                                *

                                                You’re never sure though the pages

                                                fit —it’s a small stove

                                                used to walls that have no pictures

 

                                                —it doesn’t have to remember anymore

                                                why sparks take such a hold

                                                and little by little in secret

 

                                                the way sunlight shields the Earth

                                                from night after night the floor

                                                that never really warms

 

                                                —you keep adding flames

                                                as if this old newspaper would still yellow

                                                become leaves again and slowly

 

                                                an invisible bird climbing immense

                                                till there’s no light left to breathe

                                                only the stars, tighter and tighter

 

                                                circling the sun to silence it

                                                —each evening alone, hands held out

                                                you set fire an endless sorrow

 

                                                and the plume already dry

                                                shedding its darkness on the ground

                                                for later and your shadow.

 

 

 

                                                *

                                                Lost and without a wall you are unsure

                                                what stays dark, what will move

                                                once a flashlight is waved in front

 

                                                and the plane in the picture begins to

flicker

                                                taking hold one hand all these years

                                                dead, smothered under the frame

 

                                                half dry wood, half morning

                                                and though there’s no sky yet

                                                you are flying again

 

                                                wobbled by winds no one sees anymore

                                                making room in the fleece-lined glove

                                                that can’t tell where your fingers are.

 

 

 

                                                *

                                                For the last time this overpass

                                                reaching out and the invisible horse

                                                half spray, half these cobblestones

 

                                                that follow you around each corner

                                                —four legs and still you stumble

                                                carried up by the uncut flowers

 

                                                you hold on to though this on and on

                                                is already aimless, falling from rooftops

                                                as rain and on your shoulders more feathers

 

                                                —you are flying the way this street

                                                loosens from its stones the weightlessness

                                                that covers every grave and overflows

 

                                                lifts the sky across —midair

                                                you sift for runoff and from below

                                                the unwanted shadows cling to you

 

                                                —all these thorns :step by step

                                                each splash fastens on just one foot

                                                though you dig without any dirt or shovel.

 

 

Simon Perchik