September 2016
Poetry is a lonely business, but I have a friend who plays guitar, and when I play bass with him, I find community. My most recent book is In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013 and I've had recent poems in Hummingbird, Atticus Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and other literary magazines. I'm honored to serve as managing editor of the Lorine Niedecker Monograph Series, What Region?. I blog as The Middlewesterner (www.middlewesterner.com), and have put up at least five little poems a week since mid-2008.
The Robin
On a chair on the patio
a robin singing its head off,
not frightened that I step out
to listen. Singing its head off,
its eyes singing, its wings singing,
its rusted breast singing. I stand
and listen, wondering whether
this is the bird we kept in a tub
last season and fed mashed worms,
this fragile thing now on a chair
on the patio, singing its heart out
about all it knows of love and luck.
This Point
of stillness.
The stars
spin down
upon me.
The weight
of all things
a shining.
This earth,
breathing.
A Moment
A moment
not a moment
too soon.
The flowing
curtain of air.
Coolness
as evening
settles. As long
shadows
creep out to
meet us. As birds
huddle
in darkness.
As stars whisper
secrets
and we pledge
allegiance to
silence.
A Visit to Lynn Lake, Manitoba
The dust lifts up
its whirlwind.
The mad waitress
shares her privacies
in public.
You find some girl's
underpanties flung
under a chair
in your bedroom.
You've had no girl
in your bedroom.
This far from home
you read the signs,
heed the warnings.
Waiting for Winter
Here at the end
of a green morning
the hawk rises
into autumn.
All we have been
promised, almost.
What do you fear?
All these small deaths?
All this falling away?
Blue sky tells
a different story.
©2016 Tom Montag
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