Thursday, January 16, 2014

Poetry by Greg Sellers

 Occasionally, I find poetry that I'm particularly taken with...like the work of Greg Sellers. Not only does he write poems, he has one of the best literary blogs around ( see below ) where he ferrets out and posts remarkably good art. Scores of us addicted to his site find we need to visit daily to read, view and listen to the poetry, prose, paintings and music he posts for us to enjoy.


Weltschmerz
     
Between these limbs, an emptiness
branched blue above the center of this
abandoned orchard, the afternoon
sky adrift like a dreamer’s thought,
if not for the blunt, occasional thud,
drawing attention to the ground
and over-ripened peaches the color of hurt.
No matter how still the moment, how deep
one retreats into the wooded row & column
of neglected fruit trees, there is always a reminder
that somewhere, someway, someone
is feeling a presence that has no feelings.
Each weighted limb, a burden of wrong,
each momentary tremble, a wind’s memory
of suffering. Sunlight softens the dark
stigmata along a gray trunk’s wound.
Flecks of insects glint like mica in granite, bits
of everlasting light among this amber ache.

Published in the Zócalo Public Square


Elegy for Those Not Yet Departed

This much I'm sure. It is hard to believe
in another morning's gift now that the evening
lawn has learned to grieve. Tonight moonlight
keeps sending its condolences, as if forgotten
whites on the line at the far end of the yard
can no longer bear a body's absence, and
that faint slant of lost light from a kitchen
window is not enough to bring anyone back.

Yet no one has left to forget that familiar way
home, those simple names of neighborhood streets:

Elm, Oak & Maple. Outside this window empty 
   trees
keep rehearsing a sadness I wish I could ease.
Restless curtains ghost about as if they have
   some
other place to go. The once sure shadows 
   have
now grown weary of their own quiet visits. Still

this room tries to hold onto everything it can.
Dresser mirror shines. Full moon shifts
to leave itself upon the polished floor—spent 
   soul
too tired to find its body. But this is not a 
   scene
where the sheet is slowly drawn over the 
   head, or
the doctor helplessly closes his black leather 
   bag.
The lawn has no reason for its plain, dark suit,
this solemn night—its one pale 
   chrysanthemum.

Soon daylight will slip between the limbs,
begin to soften the lonesome, walled sorrow
of shadows. Even the last geese
that shall rise across this endless, gray longing
will not make much of what they leave behind
no winter song for lifeless trees
nor grief given nights in the glove-quiet 
that a pallbearer wears, finding
what it's like to touch & not feel.

Published in the Clackamas Literary Review

For more about Greg and more of his poetry. 

Check out Greg's blog:

http://memoryslandscape.tumblr.com