May 2017
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.
OLD MUSICIANS
in the blue
darkness, cold,
aged, aching.
Just our
instruments
and us
speaking for
silence.
There's nothing
to do but
do it, play
the only
song there is.
We play it
all night long.
- for Doug Burk
EVENING
When the sky
lets down long light
upon the earth
this evening,
the darkness
fills with silence,
with stars where
hope resides.
DEEP IN THE NIGHT
crossing in front of us as
silent as death's own sister
grey wings and talons and
eyes that see what little
we know of God, the owl.
TRUTH
The sky says
blue.
The poet has
nothing else
to offer.
EMPTINESS
is the beginning. Then
it must be beautiful.
© 2017 Tom Montag
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