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All posts for the month March, 2013

Writing Poems In Tokyo

Published March 8, 2013 by rlmcdermott

can you find them
laying loose on the ground

letters about color
color about words
words about you

what a fool
I’ve been to think
that language
can save me

that love can fall
from the sky
and make poems
out of glass and steel and concrete

an old man sat beside me on a traffic island
somewhere between Tokyo Station and Ginza

he smiled

I threw a word at him
he caught it in his hat

he knew me for what I was
someone who would always be waitingFlowers

Words

Published March 8, 2013 by rlmcdermott

I am thinking
a poem can save love
a poem can save a life

I open the book
I close the book

the man across the hall
is crying out blue words

I do not speak his language

knotted words are
tightening in his chest

what keeps the
secret of a heart

a poem
a song
a picture
folded in a well-worn wallet

who are these women
and what do they mean to him

I open the book
I close the book

not even love can save a lifeFlowers