September 2020
Thomas R. Thomas
tthom55@gmail.com
Bio Note: My Mother gave me the first name Thomas because when she married my Dad in 1945 the Marines called him Tommy. People are always most curious about that. I have written poems since I was 18, and in the last about eight years have gotten a few books published. I pay back to the community by publishing a small press called Arroyo Seco Press, which is a tribute to my Mother who grew up with the Arroyo Seco in her backyard in Los Angeles.

The Desert in Summer

in the cool of night
the desert lives
as the sun
 
creeps
in the sky the
desert comes alive
 
watch as the wind
dances among
manzanita
 
swirls
dust storms
spiral to the sky
 
the heat flees
waiting to
return
 
full
furnace in
the morning

Photographs

my memory is snapshots
scattered in a shoebox
no video
 
just a trigger
to spark the recall
of a time quick to flash back
 
a time of personal pleasure
or severe heartache
the high
 
and low
of the spectrum
of a life lived long
 
and the middle muddled
between, lost in the
fuzzy cloud
 
the time
standing on the beach
in our wetsuits on our first dive
 
the first time we met, and then
spending the night on
the beach alone
 
and with another
girl sitting on her bed
her Bowie albums scattered
 
his tunes swirling from the photo
partially covered by
the picture
 
of the girl
I married, the one where
we sat on the church stoop
 
that night I was still too shy
to look you too close
in the eye
©2020 Thomas R. Thomas
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