Michael Angelo Poetry


Author: Michael Angelo

  • Sea Turtle III

    Sea Turtle III

    What does it mean
    to write?

    Is it an exhalation—the birth of something
    onto the swirling sands of the Earth?

    What compels
    the heart to swim through the violent currents
    within itself,
    and to pour what springs,
    into a cup lined with stars?

    Piously, the writer waits—

    watching for what emerges
    from sparkling
    uncertainty…

    __

    Now arises the Word.
    It is the god of the human soul,

    and its truth echoes across tide and surge.

    It is a wonder,
    how it pools into the fragile spaces
    under the night sky—everywhere
    that reverberates with the rough strum of life
    and sleeps under the tender flute sigh of death.

    __

    Somehow, when this Word is born,
    its lyric life swells within the heartbeats of the globe—

    Nothing is ever silent.
    No sea is ever barren.

    What it means
    to write

    is to cast away one’s shell
    and bare
    one’s luminosity.

  • Shadow Fire

    Shadow Fire

    People want to “make it.”
    I just
    want to find truth.

    The quest may starve me
    while others plant their roots
    and their bellies grow full,

    but what aches is not my stomach;
    it’s a vacuous space within my chest.
    Some call it the heart,
    though what crackles—

    crackles in a deeper depth—

    is a space no one can point to,
    yet everyone feels
    when
    cars stop and business
    ends.

    There,

    in that still penumbra,
    between stars and stone,
    burns this silent shadow,

                     its kindling unknown.

  • Midday Sky

    Midday Sky

    I.

    Chilly wind.
    The XH bus passes,
    and over Chelten Ave
    the clouds roll in their bed
    on the verge of crying.

    II.

    A few minutes have passed.
    Still that same cold air,
    but sunlight peeks behind grey layers,
    smiling.

  • On the Edge, Of Chelten Ave

    On the Edge, Of Chelten Ave

    —despite everything, I suppose a beautiful day
    is a beautiful day.

    The ol’heads on the block are playing music,
    no doubt memories enshrined in notes.

    There are good kids scootin’-jumpin’-runnin’
    ‘round mothers in nice dresses.

    Even the garbage men, rough like crumbled cans,
    seem to be shining
    under this sun.

    The problems aren’t gone,
    home still hangs by a thread,
    and the night waits in the corner, hungry,

    but right now—
    This moment of this day—

    Things aren’t so bad.

    I wonder if this is what it means to seize the day—except
    I haven’t dared to seize it,
    the day has simply reached into me;

    it has pulled out the pain into the light,
    and somehow
    it doesn’t look so bad, there,

    in the sun.