A FEW POEMS............                                                            Questions?   e-mail me  connie@poetrypost.com

 

 

PROFESSORIAL KNOWLEDGE

 

I see the night as an old professor

sitting quietly at the front of the classroom

wearing a gray cap,

holding a broken piece of chalk

 

he is there to tell the day

how to retain its identity

even when you lose

the very light that defines you

 

how to remain omnipotent

a teller of stories,

 

even when your opaque knowledge

has escaped through the last moon

 

the day defines its own brightness

defies instruction

and fidgets in class

uninterested in the equations of twilight

the transcendent philosophies

of blackness

 

the day leaves class early

never studies the mysteries of plato

the quiet obsidian sky

 

misses assignments about dusk and Dante

 

until one day,

a deep fog falls

the day finds

it has missed the contrast

of shadow,

the contradiction of itself

 

and heads back to the old room

where the professor seems to be gone

 

but on the desk

there is an ancient map of the galaxy

worn and weary,

but oh so patient

 

the student looks up

finds the professor waiting for him

at the top of Stonehenge

in the falling light

 

 

 

Orginally Published in:

Iodine Poetry Journal Summer 2008

By Connie Post

 

 

 

 A QUIET SEAMSTRESS

 

Oct 24, 2005

 

A four way stop

the white lines fall beneath

the black wheels of my car

 

a bus pulls over in front of me

a newscast leaks out of the radio…..

“Rosa Parks dead at age 92”

the bus seems to hesitate

knowing it has been forever changed

 

Its flashing lights

burning

throughout the whole city

through the epicenter of change

through Montgomery,

all the towns flattening under the wheels

of complacent buses

each driving through the night

looking for their lost seamstress

 

each stopping, starting

finding a known route

As if catharsis had

found its way

 

 

originally Published in

Carquinez Poetry Review

2007 No. 5

 

By Connie Post

 

License

 

You come in the house, flinging a temporary slip of paper

That tells me you can drive now

Words of congratulations fall over my lips

As you tuck your newfound freedom into your purse

And with one look, let me know that everything will change

 

I began to recall snippets of the last months

The hours logged in, on tan bucket seats

My white knuckles hanging onto the door

Rolled in with wild turns and sudden stops

Gasps of indiscretion and sighs of temporary insanity

 

The times you would check with me

To make sure it was okay to go

To make sure there was enough time

 

It was only two days ago that I watched

You take your first drive alone

Your first avalanche into adulthood

And it was then I remembered how the seat of my first car felt

The slightly torn vinyl just beneath my thigh

The pennies never pulled out from the creases

The uncertainty of speed limits or how I was to find my way home

 

This morning

I watch you walk outside into the cold air

Keys in hand and a token jacket you will throw in the back seat

You adjust a sweater you’ve had since you were thirteen

I peer through the blinds so you won’t know I am watching

Behind the curtains of separation

And know it is I who must yield, this time

 

I stand for what is like years, and all the while,

I tug at the moments, like the pennies I could not pull from the seats

Grab hold of them and let them tinge my fingers with copper and memory

 

Watch you find the settings to your mirrors

So you can see behind you, in front of you

And know that it was I who resides in the blind spot

 

Where  I know I must move back far enough

So you will someday see me waiting here, watching over you

 

In a distant passing lane

 

 

Originally Published California Quarterly 2004 Volume 30 No. 4

by Connie Post

 


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Guidelines for Spring Cleaning

They say if you haven’t used something

In one year

You should throw it away

 

But how am I supposed to know

What to do

When thoughts I haven’t

Uttered

Even to myself

In decades

Keeping showing up

 

How do I know

How many times to shake out

The winter rug

 

How do I fold the oldest towels

Assure the frayed ends are tucked in

Where do I place them

When the room is too full

 

I go back and forth all day

 

I bump my shin into the edges of the coffee table

Each time I pass

Like knowledge that sticks out

Too far

 

I arrange for a few smaller boxes

To go to the attic

 

But some

I know I must burn

 

Others have stayed

In the same spot

Since I was born

 

Those are the ones

I dare not ever move

 

Originally published in the Monterey Poetry Review Summer 2007







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