Poetry Magazine, John Sokol, April 2002

Poetry Magazine

John Sokol

USA

No-Nonsense Blues

Maybe when you’re lying there
mouth agape
no sound at all
except your heart
that pounds through ribs
like a bone breaks
and fires blaze
down the walls
inside of you
when you taste the sight
of orange and blue
and see the stars
in the dark-shut eye
and hear your breath
sear the wind
then maybe
when the world reflects
the body’s glow
you’ll see at last
that truth is like a stone
when you sigh like the wheat
and lift the rock
you’ll fear no death
you’ll walk on ice
you’ll hear a voice
and forever know your name.

-- originally appeared in Mind In Motion #36,
Apple Valley, CA, 1995

Ironweed

Do you remember
how we loved it;
how its intense,
dehydrated purple --

that no color in a tube
or swatch of king’s cloth
matches -- dazzled
our eyes?

Do you remember
how the bees
and the butterflies loved it;
how they settled

on the clusters,
defending their thrones
with defiant stillness;
majestic resolve?

Remember
how it stood,
mingled and tall,
over the fields of goldenrod

near the pond;
how the red-winged blackbirds
made their love sorties
over the compliments of color?

And, oh, those colors!
Do you remember
dioxin purple
and pollen yellow,

scarlet red and
velvet black
against
the azure sky?

But this is
all memory
and that is the past.
I don’t know

who loves you now.
But, tell me.
Do you remember
the ironweed,

or, for that matter,
the goldenrod;
the red-winged blackbirds;
the azure sky?

-- originally appeared in The Antigonish Review, # 109, 1997

note: this poem, "Ironweed," is in the Real Audio section of
PoetryMagazine.com, but it doesn't appear online in "readable" format.