that place

[Nematoda]

A four-letter word

Set on the tongue, spun around, and blurred.

Hits the ears, travels through sparks.

It arrives, tired, and jet lagged.

It touches that place in the soul.

A key made not of copper or steel.

Opens doors without frames, rooms with no windows.

Suddenly the tape rewinds, the images appear.

 

Images of far away places, and times passed.

They all rush back, like waves from a blast.

 

Images of love’s lost and friend’s laughs.

Of efforts lost, and mastered crafts.

 

Images of people, resting, in slumber under the soil.

Of dinner jokes and bath times with water always hand boiled.

 

Images of wise words heard and forgotten, mistakes repeated.

Of apologies that always made dear mother heated.

 

Images of heroes unknown, and wars un fought.

Of broken dreams and crumbled thoughts.

 

The poet sits inside his home, the key.

Scattered all over like debris.

He looks around to piece it together ”slow, steps”

Small things across the room, large pieces to the puzzle.

In his hand a book of poems to be published.

In that room, without time, without rule, volumes sit unwritten.

That’s why, in life and in death, there is no place like home

[General Duke]

Not a bad poem, but you can do better. It seems you are rushing these. Its not quantity but quality.

[Nematoda]

Altruism

 

By Molly Peacock

 

 

What if we got outside ourselves and there

really was an outside out there, not just

our insides turned inside out? What if there

really were a you beyond me, not just

the waves off my own fire, like those waves off

the backyard grill you can see the next yard through,

though not well—just enough to know that off

to the right belongs to someone else, not you.

What if, when we said I love you, there were

a you to love as there is a yard beyond

to walk past the grill and get to? To endure

the endless walk through the self, knowing through a bond

that has no basis (for ourselves are all we know)

is altruism: not giving, but coming to know

someone is there through the wavy vision

of the self’s heat, love become a decision.