Poetry Magazine Robert Peter Schneider

Robert Peter Schneider

USA

NIGHTS LIKE TODAY

On nights like today
you walk but you seem
to go nowhere. Better to sit

and get to know the malady.
Look up-- how eyes invent
the darkness. Those stars

really shine from sky-top
perches but the space
between-- your gaze defines.

The mind inhabits the
shadows. Remember that moment
which clocks intoned like waves

of quivering vibraphones--
in the pause between pulses, even
then you knew restlessness--

Even then-- you were just waiting
as the seconds swept past, listening
for chimes that wind does not stir.