Tuesday, January 18, 2022

E. Martin Pederson _______________ four poems


The Beauty of Books on a Shelf

 

pinetrees at the edge of the forest

ready to be felled

pickets in a fence

always white

dandelions in the grass

in a seaside town

in salty Maine

creases in a thick curtain

in the projection room (industrial marketing shorts)

the bored room

junior & senior yes women & men yesyesyes

coats on a rack

in the room in the back

where I am sent

for snickering

during story-time

in Miss Soite's fifth grade

and in the scoutmaster's mind

boy scouts ideally rigid

baseball bats leaning on a cyclone fence

then tall glasses on the bar

bottles in a supermarket with cartoon labels

in alphabetical order

one by one.

 

The Chill of the Sierra

 

is not cold

the sun's out

the night was damp

and the night was cold

the frost is cold

but now there's only a chill

the brisk air

the smell of granite

floor of duff

air you'd want

to share

in advertising

 

I can feel that fresh air

anywhere

everywhere

any and everywhere

 

 

Curse Immortality

 

There’s a sad sigh of relief at the end of every job

Like summer

Like a sealed vault at the end of a hallway

I’m glad to move the train, leaving another station behind

I only wish it would never end

This curse of immortality.

 


A Life Saved is a Life Earned

 

Everything around us is dust

we’ve only got each other

I will never let you out of my sight

ever again, all my days.

 

You are mine or I yours

proper and appropriate

went down with the cathedral

on the believers’ heads.

 

Never to separate, claustrophobic

two as one inside the other

I will never break my promise

you wear yellow rubber boots.

 

 

 

 

 

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