April 2024
Bio Note: A composer, health/science journalist, editor, visual artist, and poet, I live near Washington DC, and teach workshops on the Sonnet, the Villanelle, Meter, Poetry Vs. Trauma, and other topics on Zoom through The Writer’s Center (writer.org). Having studied classical composition and bel canto singing while in my 20s, I have written and performed musical settings of poems by Shakespeare, Marvell, Dana Gioia, Frederick Turner, Frederick Feirstein, Phillis Levin, Kelly Cherry, Micheal O’Siadhail, Reuben Jackson, Indran Amirthanayagam, Rhina Espaillat, and other poets. My 2022 article on the process of setting poems to music is online at straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html, along with sound files of a few of my songs. My 2006 book Humor Me (David Robert Books, 2006) is available from Amazon, while my chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism: Poems Inspired by the Sciences and Mathematics (2019), are available from the email address listed above.
Landing Gear Zone
One kind of thunder, then another kind—
this time an aircraft leaving or arriving,
plus a double-bass
slide whistle to announce that landing gear
lowers or stows. To all on board: peace, safety,
minimal jet lag.
But it could be a different type of thunder,
as close as we are to a capital
powerful and hated.
What follows the last thunder—what will play
when we are gone? Bugle, bagpipe, drum,
choral requiem.
Seersucker
for RM
With sharp vertical stripes
of white and navy blue
it hung for months in a closet,
reminding me of you.
Behind it on the dusty floor
were photocopied pages
stacked neatly, nearly half my height:
your diary, for the ages.
Then came the day you phoned
to wish me well and mutter
that I could keep your old suit,
and I said, “I must declutter.”
Its fabric was synthetic,
ridgy and rough, but lined
with a smooth, silky film.
Should I have changed my mind?
When first you’d introduced me
to poets who held you dear,
you wore that dapper outfit.
It was a dizzying year.
I told you I was grateful
you’d give me space to grow,
since I could not compete with you.
You said, “Oh, I don’t know….”
The seer was the sucker,
for I filed those words away
and never read, till you were dead,
what your diary would say.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL