3 poems by Jacob David Snyder 

flight from fairy land

i sit

in a suitcase

observe planes and persons

behind wrapping plastic

numbered thoughts on a display board

a boy cries in my queue

the aching crowd

baggage check

passport still marked with

your lipstick

you never kissed me at the ocean

i think this in the air

somewhere above

longing and longitude

i’d taken you

who’d never been

you collected shells

smuggled them in my pocket

i cupped the atlantic

and you took it and

baptized me

ANODOS

greek for pathless

ascent

in the chateau’s shadow

instrument in picnic

i played arpeggio

triplets in c minor

swam in it

sounded your contours

you smelt like

the spice trade

carried on the breath

of an ancient sea

you sang soprano

a song meant for me

and in that moment

the world

stopped

to listen

years later

positioned before the pews

of a courtroom

judge officiated

blinding cloth

blood on a record

i did not write

i looked for you

but standing in your place

was a woman

i did not know

and in that moment

all the passings of you

like passages of verse

at once and not

real and fiction

untouched words

sung in shadow

a ghost

in george macdonald’s phantastes

the protagonist, anodos

pursues a vision

carved from stone

pygmalion’s pride

she is ageless

she is unchanging

he pursues her through alder and ash

and at the end of it all

he wakes up

from my plane i look

out the window

observe the great

expanse of blue

i thought i was

watching the ocean

but it turns out i never had

a boy cries in my seat

eucharist

pan spits

in my face

cook with gas on high

i tell a joke

that no one hears

as i wait

through the forgotten moments

before they arrive

in twos and threes

they take their seats

at the long table

one laughing body

and me the head

with a hundred eyes

turned inward

i catch the light

in a drinking glass

silent wonders

have i earned it?

can i deserve it?

a feast prepared

roast turkey, maple yams

green beans and pulled pork

emptied bottles of

cabernet;

on my plate i paint a pollock

and find a rose

of bread and apple slices

its petals fall way

pulled by their smiling eyes

licking like candle flames

set at an altar

which i envision

to one day seat millions

and we will flicker together

wedding vows

how dull must be heaven

mundane paradise

to be a song without end

or a sun without rise

let me be banished

to wrestle with angels

and bleed my own eucharist

though we may try

past our expiration date

i hold the very passing as sacred

these shared passages with you

too worthy, too important

to have lasted forever

let us dance in the graveyard

until we drop dead

and when we die

let us expand outward

into memory

until even that fades

with the names on our stones

i speak your name now

hands cupped in devotion

to be gifted over the water

like ashes to the wind

like praises to the dusk

Thank you.

you who went to the grave

and pulled me along

Thank you.

you who bought me

who found me in the mud

and said i was her “everything”

Thank you.

you who saw

the mountain in the man

and decided to climb

___________________

Jacob David Snyder is a freelance writer and editor. His work has been featured in Eunoia Review and Rising Phoenix Review. He’s contributed to the production of several publications, including Poems in the Aftermath: An Anthology from the 2016 Presidential Transition Period by Indolent Books. He lives in New York City.