March 2017
I am the author of seven poetry books. I have poems featured in numerous worldwide publications , including Prairie Poetry, The Heron’s Nest, Poems Niederngasse, Newtopia, and Barefoot Review. My hobbies are golf, reading whatever book happens to catch my eye, and gardening. I currently reside in Topeka, Kansas.
vinyl
the phonograph needle
never lifts without help
sometimes it skips
groove to groove
sometimes it hangs
on a single sound
a word, a note
over and over
this is my generation
ancient technology
the pops and crackles
become reminders
imperfection will never
quite be the same
and i am not the same
vinyl will never be
digitized into perfection
published Poet’s Haven 2014
Quiet morning
(Written after cancer treatments in 2007)
In that early morning quiet
nothing moves, nothing exists
except the imagined sounds
of a horses’ hooves
and creak of an old wagon,
long gone from the Kansas plain.
I sit motionless, an attempt
to blend with the moment
and stare across the open sky.
My thoughts move past denial,
through all the treatments,
three weeks of chemotherapy,
seven weeks of radiation.
Now I wait, immerse myself
in quiet reflection.
the only question left, is it gone?
My heart wants to believe it is,
the answer is still weeks away.
I am left with reruns of wagon train.
© 2017 Robert McManes
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