Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Geoffrey Gatza




The onyx days of black winter nights


I wake in the middle of the night screaming.
The cats come to my side and comfort me.

Only the gray squirrels look forward to winter.
The onyx days of black winter nights singing

To trees the acorns songs of slumbering.
I am in front of television listening to the radio.

I wait patiently for those literary electric hums;
The body is lying outstretched pining for sleep.

Jagged tears define the years in my fading skin.
A life hooked to heart machines is not a poetry.

That damn line is new yet it makes me timeworn. 
I never owned anything but thoughts, or memories.

That is to say, except for a few moments, most of my life
Are golden plagiarisms. A green seesaw goes up and down.

I find myself blinded with anger on a dimly lit playground.
I was five. I had nothing in my mind but candy. I am nothing.

A wink and a nod salutes my lost memories. 
It is life, the end of life, actually. Metallic green

Paint chips away on the steel jungle gym. Today I am
In my hospital bed reminiscing tobacco, drugs, poetry.


*


Earth Revolves Itself Once Again
—after Pierre Reverdy



Resounding blooms
Blue birds fly north.

In the backyard where everything seems to happen
The squirrel darts through our leafless lilac tree.

Outside a woman is cleaning the table; a man makes fire.
Water streams from a hose clearing the driveway apron.

A rainburst negotiates with a cloud.
The sun abrupts with striking chimes.


*


Watching last year’s pumpkin transcend determinism


Even now this cemetery is accumulating.
The hills darken. The dead
sleep in their blue graves,
the grounds having been
picked clean, the ribbons
faded, the pinwheels piled at the dumpster
among wind ripped tiny American flags
as garbagemen come forward for collection:

Now feel tension fail to achieve.
Concatenation transpires.
Tears melt into sweat.
This is the barrenness
of grief; to watch life rot
as we move ever forward.

  


© Geoffrey Gatza



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1 comment:

  1. Geoffrey Gatza posted also a short bio:

    Geoffrey Gatza is an award winning editor, publisher and poet. He was named by the Huffington Post as one of the The Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry (2013). He is the author many books of poetry, including Apollo (BlazeVOX 2014), Secrets of my Prison House (BlazeVOX 2010) Kenmore: Poem Unlimited (Casa Menendez 2009) and HouseCat Kung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children (Meritage Press 2008. Geoffrey Gatza is the editor and Publisher of the small press BlazeVOX. The fundamental mission of BlazeVOX is to disseminate poetry, through print and digital media, both within academic spheres and to society at large. He lives in Kenmore, NY with his girlfriend and two beloved cats.

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