Martin H. Levinson Verse-Virtual 2016 November

November 2016

I write poetry because it helps me make sense of the world around and inside me. It piques my interest in the past and prods me to think more about the present and the future. I find the act of writing poetry joyful and self-reinforcing, even when the content of my poems is about sad or traumatic events. Please visit my website: martinlevinson.com.

The Penitent Sea

A sea is a large body of salt water
   surrounded in whole or in part
by land and the projections of
   beach walkers who stare into

the roiling surf and see friends that
   disappoint, jobs that didn’t work out,
a world gone awry due to climate change,
   terrorism, poverty, and sorry I forgot it

was your birthday, not a hanging crime
   except in the State of Perfection where
everyone remembers everything and
   nothing falls through the cracks which is

an utter impossibility due to faulty
   human wiring that leads people to screw up
from time to time: Chernobyl, Titanic,
   the twelve book publishers who

turned down Harry Potter, the
   fourteen relatives I offended when
I showed up a day late for
   my family reunion and said life

is an adventure in forgiveness,
   a quest for clemency,
a search for absolution,
   a mix of metaphor mornings

and makeshift afternoons
   where the sea surges
and laughs at the
   errors I make.

Published in Common Ground Review (Winter 2016)

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