Michael T. Young Verse-Virtual 2017 April

April 2017

I studied and practiced martial arts almost fanatically when I was a teenager but injured my back when I was fifteen. I started writing poetry and by the time my back healed, I decided to be a poet rather than the next Bruce Lee. Since then I’ve published four collections of poetry and received recognitions such as a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. You can keep up with my work at www.michaeltyoung.com.

Virgil in Calcutta

He walked ahead of me, down the arcade,
fending off shopkeepers who offered brass
and ivory trinkets. He ushered me through shade,
pledged guidance anytime to anyplace.
He shooed the children begging at the door,
turned back a toothless, crescent grin and bowed,
gesturing toward the street as though he wore
the face of every myth of light and cloud.

Outside, people careened under the light.
The traffic died. The cars and busses steamed.
A mound of earth rose high around a site
where they exhumed something I read or dreamed:
these lame boys, faceless men, this painful heat.
I closed my eyes . . . and stepped into the street.

(first published in SPSM&H)

Examples to Follow

Traffic, a crowd, the tide flooding the bay,
      whatever will rise and fall, will begin,
            then end, forgive each moment for what comes along,
like wind shoving the clouds, and clouds, the day,
      like the night calling the sun to come in,
            the dream where a brief second is lifelong,

where nothing waits for praises or regret,
      but takes as eyes take, gives with the ease of skin—
  only so much—yet real as all you know,
that leaves or stays, will sleep and wake, forget,
                        let go.

(first published in The Edge City Review)

Pocket Change

After the clouds have spent their worth in water
and rain’s a silver puddle in the street,
the wind tugs storefront awnings till they flutter,
dropping their pocket change at passing feet.
After the soggy papers clog the gutters
and someone curses at a speeding truck
about the cost of good dry cleaners, mutters
another curse about his rotten luck,
steam rises, floats like fabric wearing thin,
drifts by an idling car, then falling, folds
its fading threads around a homeless man,
entwines his face, his hand, the cup he holds.
He slept throughout the rain that filled his cup,
and though it stopped, he won’t be waking up.

(first published in The Edge City Review)

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