USA

jamesebecker@hotmail.com 

You

We are alive at the same time, you and I,
Adrift in the same space. Our sad comedies
Somehow intersect, and the pull of me to you
Is the breath I can never catch. There is no word for us now,
None I can fathom, and our time together is suspended 
While I gather, fumble, learn, and repeat. I grow old,
Apart from you, and the small hollow place is made smaller
By the part of me that aches for completion
And has already sensed your presence in the world.

The Poem At The Top of The Stairs

as if you were climbing stairs
a large load
in puny arms
and again
and again
back up the stairs
large load in small arms

and I am the man who hangs
the flesh on the bones of the poem
and takes your load
at the top of the stairs
o yes
I could write a prettier poem

But what would you want
with a pretty poem?

Liberation

The thing about you, she said
is that I will never see you again.
I’m going to liberate you with pain.
Your poems will be no good.
Your days will be no good.
Try turning me off – just you try.
The trip through town will hard for you.
The places we ate, the things we did,
these will twist in your gut
and you won’t forget me
for an awfully long time.
You won’t be who you were.
This is one of those things 
people do for each other 
to remind us we are mortal.
You can thank me
by liberating someone else.

Lamentation

I suffer, and yet I do not see.
The old things that once worked, the 
Gifts of mind that brought me here
Have hardened on my face
and softened my soul.
Suffering is not enough, is nothing anymore,
And the devil’s shadow lengthens with mine.
I can’t keep what everyone else has. I wander

And the thought of so many lost years
Takes me at the knees. Oh God, Where is it?
How can I know you so well when I have
Squandered your kingdom? I stand to listen hard
- the old things being gone now – 
And my answer is the same as the dust.

© All Copyright, 2000, James E. Becker.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.