Lee Evans Verse-Virtual 2017 August

August 2017

I live in Bath, Maine and work for the local YMCA. Right-handed by nature, I write poetry with my left hand, which probably explains a lot. I have self-published several books of poetry which are available on Lulu.com, the latest of which is a collection of selected poems, The Road And Where It Goes.

Just Like America

Smarting with five wasp stings,
I strolled about Westminster Hall
through the rambling cemetery,
comparing the two graves of Poe—

while towering behind the church,
like an upstart promoted to supervisor,
a newly constructed office building
sneered down upon the Conqueror Worm.

That day was the Fourth of July.
That evening, in the Inner Harbor,
families huddled under umbrellas,
craned at fireworks in a drizzle.

Rockets soared from a nearby barge,
exploding just like America;
while above and beyond Federal Hill
and the Museum of Visionary Art,

another barge blew its pyrotechnics,
as in some parallel universe.
Slowly the rain soaked into the earth,
the grass, and the two graves of Poe.

Man of Few Words

A conch shell lay upon the stand that stood
Between his easy chair and storm window,
Which faced the river where his piers held rows
Of boats to rent, with bait to sell, and good,
Strong fishing poles of bamboo and of wood.
And when he dandled me upon his knee,
This man of few words spun me fantasies
About the mollusk that became sea food.
His waterman’s rough hands mimed in the air
How some big, greedy starfish sucked its life
And cast its armor on the beach, right there,
Below the bulkhead: hands which once in strife
Shuddered with terror and a Gatling Gun,
And mowed the German ranks in World War One!

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