Poetry

All posts in the Poetry category

The Kiss

Published May 15, 2014 by rlmcdermott

Who’ll sing
my song
when I
am gone?

Who’ll paint
the sky?

I live
for love
who can’t
be loved–it
is my fate.

I am root
and I am
flower–soon
will be my
bitter hour.

A knife,
a rope,
the wind,
the sea,

these are
the things
that call
to me.

You stand up
and I fall down;
I dance for you
who cannot see.

Is love
what I am
all about–
I sell my soul
and I sell out?

A pair of eyes,
a wisp of hair
and I am lost
and I am there.

Wars are wars,
countries fall,
children die and
I am born.

Again and always,
I return to find you gone;
there must be something
more than this–someway
to end this bitter kiss.The Kiss

Headlines

Published May 13, 2014 by rlmcdermott

How did
this happen;
dead beneath
the headlines–
blue metal,
blue bird,
blue child?

Imagine
the moment,
the sharp
slap of air,
the ferocious
snap of wing,
and then
the still
and certain fall.

And you,
the child,
all breakable
bone; your
arm twisted
until it spiraled
out of its socket,
and like the
bird fell
down.

On a cold Sunday,
inside a newspaper,
beside a metal dumpster
two things dead–
a bird and a child.Child

Andante Deliorosa

Published April 8, 2014 by rlmcdermott

Mineola
Rosyln
Old Westbury
warm summer nights
in a three-piece suit
gray fedora
Walter Mitty
bobby pins
floral housecoat–
once around the block
without a license

Wilkes-Barre
coal mines
John L. Lewis
brick shithouse
battle-axe
St Paul of the Lily–
it took seven years
to ask her to marry him

Sister Anne Bernadette
Mary Schroeder
Nancy Drew
with a built-up shoe

Lost in New Jersey
Lost in Brooklyn
Lost in Manhattan
Lost on Long Island

No need to
ask for directions
right turn
left turn
bear right
bear left
stop–everything
was played by ear

The Artist

Published February 27, 2014 by rlmcdermott

I’ve written
so many
poems
for you

and painted
pictures too

blue and
red and
gold on
paper made
of skin

I am
ashamed
of how
I’ve loved

a lantern
floating
in the sky

could not
have burned
as bright

I will
not stop
until
I reach
the sun

and all
my art
consumed
in flame
gives fiery
birth to your
sweet name

The Botanist

Published February 14, 2014 by rlmcdermott

Love
ducked
around
the corner
when it saw
her coming
until she
found it
here–
hiding
in a field
full of
wildflowers.

She knows
their names
better than
she knows
her own–
coneflower,
lady-slipper,
brown-eyed susan.

They grab
at straws
to keep
alive. Their
days are
bright and
flat and
they roll
them on
their edges.

Deep in
the tall
grasses,
she can
hear them
sing–
a simple
song that
settles on
the wind.The Botanist

Long Season Of Waiting

Published February 14, 2014 by rlmcdermott

I wonder why
for some of us
life is like a long
season of waiting.

Does the cone flower
know the brevity
of its dance;
its one brown
eye blasted daily
by the sun–
can it see
anything
but the sky?

I’m a flower too
and my season
has been long.
For me, there
is no fall
in this place
just an endless
summer of grief.

I am unnatural,
a seed lifted
by the breeze
and carried here–
distant from the prairie,
distant from the tall grass,
distant from the meadow lark,
and distant from that softer
season when the earth
puts on its gray hat
and takes its flowers home.Landscape On An IPHONE

The Yew Tree

Published February 13, 2014 by rlmcdermott

she dresses
you in red
and takes
you to her bed

you think that I don’t know

but flowers
grow beside
my heart
and tell me
all their secrets

the small hotel
the river Seine
the Paris sky

pain is all I know these days

you lied

I was myself
until you came
and sat beside me
on a garden bench
and asked my name

I couldn’t turn away

two years have passed
since that bright day
the moon has danced
across so many skies
all painted blue and
I grow old and cannot
die for love of youThe Yew Tree

Japan

Published January 21, 2014 by rlmcdermott

red flower
paper umbrella
white snow

it is about
the small
things

a hummingbird
in a Kyoto
train station

the correct
etiquette
for eating
tempura

an old
woman
singing

cherry
blossoms

a garden
bench

a man’s
voice

musicThe Male Geisha