Category: Existential Poetry

  • Library Staff

    Library Staff

    The library staff changed
    and my heart grew a little colder.

    Not bitterly cold—just room temperature water
    pooled when crying in the tub for too long.

    The library staff changed,
    just when I wanted to share a crazy idea:
    that maybe my poetry had a place
    there among the authors.

    I knew a guy, a bigshot library guy—
    thought I’d make him my messiah, but
    the library staff changed,
    and I witnessed an interview.

    I could tell from the prospect’s face
    that she knew about the change,
    and that it was coming again soon,
    and that home

    was a crazy idea.

  • My Place

    My Place

    I’m sitting on the front steps of a lovely church. To the right of me are jade leaves entranced by the rolling of a warm breeze. Birds on branches are chirping a medley that creates a symphonic membrane around the intersection, a visually imperceptible emotive field that cars pierce through with their hurry. Engines rumble as they meld with the horizon. Their echoes fade, then more take their place. The day continues, but it’s nice right here where I am. On these steps, I rest—on these steps, my place next to the leaves.

  • Today’s Joys

    Today’s Joys

    I think that in this world
    it is best to find a little
    happiness.

    Leaves and trees fall and wither
    with the rain and snow.

    Those flashes of bright spring,
    the pretty smile and sunlit eyes,
    they fade with time.

    What lingers is strife,
    the inertia that demands
    greater and greater energy from us.

    We are like flowers,
    vibrant with starry power—
    until it’s all used up,
    and what is left is disorder.

    So, we should use this moment
    and the miraculous organ of the mind
    to make sense of our time,
    and find reasons to love,
    and reasons to smile.

    At the end of the day,
    night arrives
    and our joys become
    cricket hymns.  

  • Gratitude

    Gratitude

    I only have this life,

    and though the years seem to pass without notice,

    I can only be content with the measure I have been given.

    Though I have little to show for myself

    in terms of fame and material riches,

    I have moments such as these,

    where the quiet of my room is alive

    with gentle droplets of rain.

    I am filled with such gratitude

    for having the ears to hear it.