July 2014
jacob erin-cilberto, originally from Bronx, NY, now resides in Carbondale, Illinois. He has been writing and publishing poetry since 1970 and currently teaches at John A. Logan and Shawnee Community colleges in Southern Illinois. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals. erin-cilberto was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in 2006-2007-2008 and again in 2010.
a George Washington Bridge made of Green Paper Illusion
the hobo prophets
line the back alleys
of 3rd Avenue
with their Christ-like locks
and beards bending down to the cold pavement
outstretched hands molded into dime prayers
nickel bags in back pockets
the only bible they need
as they smoke their dreams
to the bony curb of a life
down on their knees
cause it's the last place they have to go---
horns blare as traffic passes
just blocks from their pews
holy juice bottle wrapped in brown paper litany
a few sips left along with last rites
the next world must be heaven
because there are no blue skies
in this winery
of destitution,
and a dollar given at the gate
only allows entry into a saturated world
of uneasy sleep
hail marys recited
through broken teeth
and skeletal longing
for something they can't even remember
they ever prayed for.
In the Poet's Lab
words, a culture
much like bacteria
and when exposed to the climate
of pain,
they flourish.
found an old five cent postcard from the state of my youth
silos silently stand at attention
along an old highway in a Vermont landscape
the ghost barns
bones with swallows pecking at shadows
rusted milk cans swallowed by years
of neglect,
farmers, just as neglected, sway in rocking chair harmony
on porches with tattered hammocks singing backup
the hoof prints of Holstein intuition vaguely recognizable
in fields with broken down fences
barbed wire directions declining
dairy diaries left untouched in attics of what used to be
a state that once flourished with illustrious industry
stanchions of cud chewing mooing contentment
lost in time,
a changing world
as cries from the pasture of existence
are no longer heard,
and the grass just grows into tangled tumbleweed
that blows away
like dreams of generations
of sunrise to sunset
lovers of the land
who become scarecrow memories
to graze against a wind of homogenized
apathy.
Hush
in a rubber room world
my madness makes perfect sense
chronologically,
not clinically,
speaking
©2014 jacob erin-cilberto