"abuts" poems
I hold the feather’s weight of your artery in my pick-ups,
and tiptoe the tightrope about which life and death abuts.
You’re a 2 AM trauma and we still don’t know your name,
the social worker’s thin lips had mouthed: “estranged.”
I read your anatomy like a text as you flat-line:
your hands turn blue as your heart falls still in mine.
The monitor hums "out of time," but by Epinephrine,
and Grace, your chest resumes its rise.
I leave trauma bay in prayer: for the surviving, not the knife;
for the closeness of my hands in your chest, our joining in this life.
Tonight I see you at the Kroger, buying TV dinners and beer.
I hide behind cereal, admiring the life I’d held dear.
But you look so tired, and my heart breaks for how when you died,
I would’ve sold the shoes off my feet to buy you more time.
I wish you knew how precious was each of your heartbeats,
I wish you the wisdom of my view:
How fragile the stent is where your veins meet.
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 7:32 PM UTC
1747
The parasol is the umbrella’s daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.
The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.
3.2k
do you see the homeless man,
huddled in a corner where the parking lot
abuts the brickwork,
and the thin cardboard below
does what it can to keep the chill away
from his bones?
he was once proud and able,
they trained him to think,
to fight and survive,
to walk into the oncoming storm
and meet it with equal fury,
a machine gun in one hand
and kevlar protecting him.
a soldier, he was,
now sitting alone and forgotten,
avoided by most
because he smells of dirt and ****
and businessmen cross the street
just so they won't have to look him in the eye.
they all say "we should do something about that"
but they don't mean it,
until the homeless man comes begging at their stoop,
and they threaten to call the cops on him
so he doesn't drive away business.
if they looked in his eyes,
would they see his nobility,
his pride in that he stood,
with his brothers and sisters in arms,
for a way of life now denied him?
or would he hide that from them,
and leave quietly to return to his parking lot corner,
and sit on the thin cardboard,
letting the chill seep into his bones?
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 3:04 PM UTC
by Martin H. Levinson
I’d rather read the Sunday papers
than write this poem, for I can’t think
of anything to say and the yard needs
mowing, the car needs washing,
the tub needs scrubbing and I think
I’ll make myself a cup of coffee,
have a bit of the raisin scone I bought
this morning at Briermere Farms, fresh
from the oven and the finish of a
two-mile stroll along the banks of the
Peconic where I watched a vesper sparrow
circle lazy in the sky, a cumulus cloud
hang low on the horizon, an alice blue
kayak sail slowly past a McDonald’s
parking lot that abuts the water upon
which floated a white plastic coffee lid
and two cigarette stubs that seemed
horribly out of place in a place where
fluke, flounder, and striped bass hail from
and swans, geese, and Carolina ducks
also call home.
Dec 29, 2016
Dec 29, 2016 at 9:47 PM UTC
It's hard to admit
That you no longer my twin
Your absence ripped my heart
Left it bleeding
Am out of plasters to cover the sores
Was it worthy it for you to leave?
Am cold and scared to live in this cage
I miss being squashed around your warm arms
Giggling and smiling
Your soft hands moving around my physique
Our funny chats and passionate kisses
Is all i need
Maybe if we could meet
Our eye contacts will abuts the dead feelings
Reminds you the good times we had
And promises you've made
Was about to give you all of me
Because i heed how cosy i am when you are around
But that is water under the bridge now
-Lakhana
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 6:57 PM UTC
NdinguNontlalo
NdinguNontlalontle
Am not your friend
Nor your enemy
But that person you need when you lost in the mist
Like a lonely sheep in the field
I abuts the weary lion inside you
Only need your say
Only need your courage
You with me it can roar
Not for you only
But for the whole community
I am the social worker
I direct you to paradise
So you won't get hungry again
So you won't always need me
I make no decision
You make it by yourself
I only guide you to right path
NdinguNontlalontle
-Lakhana Mnyani
Mar 17, 2018
Mar 17, 2018 at 4:13 AM UTC
The fire’s gone out
in the last wooden hut
Fresh snow has been falling,
cold hunger abuts
The Red Coats emboldened
in far Germantown
The wind carries stillness,
with death all around
A General stands watch
on the farthest of hills
His heart never waivers,
his anger instills
The firewood gone
but the embers still burn
O’er forests and rivers,
to Paris in turn
The Schuylkill runs quiet,
Lenape scouts have returned
“Our enemy grows fat, Sir,
in taverns that burn”
The outcome awaiting,
its body count high
Where cabins though frozen
—the stars and stripes fly
(Valley Forge: November, 2020)
Nov 20, 2020
Nov 20, 2020 at 2:26 PM UTC