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