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Sunday 11 April 2010

Evening Star


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File:SF night.JPG





The matchlight trembles.... a star on the horizon
when night is coming on
like those who bust the gangs






San Francisco at night, from Treasure Island: photo by Bsteckler, 2009

4 comments:

Curtis Roberts said...

Waking up to this (actually to all three of the poems) in a still-dark hotel room with my family sleeping, typing away as quietly as I can, is like waking up to a new, really significant snowfall, all beauty, perfect balance and no footprints yet. It's all pleasure and privilege.

Anonymous said...

spring brings

me to the river

just like the tide brings

the drifting

castoffs

or

winter breakages

valued once

as something

useful

now it rots

unless a poem saves it

or

the drifter

reclaims it

for her dinner

TC said...

Thank you Curtis and Zev. Yes, that's exactly the purpose, and hopefully the product: to scatter some light things adrift, and hope they will settle somewhere in some such way as to create for someone(s) some sort of thought or meaning or (well, this last objective is the real key to the whole project), at the very least, some small moment of pleasure.

(And by the way, speaking of literal snowfall, there is talk that we may actually get some of that here later today, in with the usual mix of wind, rain and hail...)

(And lest I forget: "winter breakages" = a phrase to keep in one's pocket like a small smooth stone, and rub occasionally, hoping for a touch of reverse good luck.)

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"when night is coming on" -- and then in a few hours it's getting light again . . . .

4.11

first grey light in sky above shadowed
wall, white curve of moon above branch
in foreground, sound of cars in street

there is something, what is
then approached as if

to picture, patterned frame,
as to deceive the eye

whiteness of cloud in bright blue sky,
bird perched on branch across from it