After Compiling a List of 16 Things to Do, I Retreat To a Backyard Hammock and Attempt to Clear My Mind
At first, static,
the haunting
scratch of pen on pad.
Birdsong,
only gradually
and the rustle
of dead leaves.
My heartbeat, a frantic
pulsing,
the morning’s tension
tightening
my jaw and neck.
In a moment,
I will be breathing.
Traffic sounds,
the buzz of insects,
the indifferent
world of things
and other creatures.
This moment is important.
This moment is already gone.
The pages
of my notebook flutter
in the wind.
About Love
Once I knew a poet
who made
nineteen
million dollars
simply by leasing
a dozen, rusty
oil-tanker trucks
and disposing
of liquid
industrial waste
by deliberately
leaving
the rear spigots
of his trucks
slightly open,
on dark,
rainy nights,
and hiring guys
willing
to drive them,
down I-95,
to the Meadowlands
and back.
He's behind
bars now,
which is
probably
for the best,
but his love poems
do occasionally
trickle out into print
to suggest
he's been running
a smaller
operation
that doesn't pay
nearly as well.
_________________
Michael Colonnese is the author of a hard-boiled detective novel, Sex and Death, I Suppose, and of two poetry collections, Temporary Agency and Double Feature. He lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
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