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 May 2017 SK O'Sullivan
Onoma
Don't exaggerate the price
paid to meet the pay off.
Ms. Magdalene oiled up a
pair of great feet only after
turning a blind eye too many,
to forced entries.
No sooner.
If you give pain a false address,
no one will visit.
They'll leave sentimentally
orphaned flowers at wrong doors.
You won't even answer your own
door knocking on itself, you hide.
As time chisels your sacrificial altar...
candles huddle closer and closer
for warmth, even as they burn.
Surrounded by answered prayers,
growing hungry for acknowledgement.
Our house is a black box.
We drape every window

but one, a pinhole
to capture the sun.

At night our eyes go dark as ink.
Our memories marbleize at
the edge of the bedroom.

Come morning,
we are nothing

but inverted images
fed by shared light.

You tell me to smile
and I braid your hair.

Upstairs, the children
develop like ghosts.

I put on another record
and the dark disc spins,

its needle lulled
into grooves the way
you are lulled into me.

We could almost dance together,
but the couple at the window

will not move until
we come into focus.
A  stiff  breeze
blowing  the  cherry  blossoms  away.
Petals  floating  into  space
like  tiny  butterflies.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK  2017.
 May 2017 SK O'Sullivan
r
A man without
scars is like a river
without water
like a room without
a window
or a son to carry on
the name
and a man without
a woman
is a man without woe
or sand or a heart
to be broken
a man
who is dreaming only
of a tractor
and wide open
fields with no hay
to be mown.
Where I live
crows crowd the sky
black kites in the wind

Inscrutable dark eyes
take my measure
as they pass
tell tales to the gale
herald the storm

Where I live
springtime makes her bold attempt
a moment of sun
fragrant blooms beyond measure
and fails yet again

Where I live
rain drowns the lowly worm
beats down like
the teacher you despised in school

And the sea!
The ocean has come to churn
here
miles inland

My eyes are raingrey
my spirit presses upward
the rain presses down

Yet I breathe!
The air is sweet
the moments of sun
and endless blue
miracles of the hour

I treasure these times
beneath a sea of showers
the Pacific Ocean
rolling over the coastal hills
arriving here at our door

This lush green world
whose verdant measure
is spoken in tongues
its secret heart desires the tempest
demands the rain
insists upon its prerogative.

How can I say otherwise?
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