Poems From the Snow

On December 19-20, 2009, the Philadelphia area had up to 24" of snow... these are two poet's perspectives, inspired by the Blizzard of 2009:

Under A Blanket of White

The snow falls,
while you sleep softly
under a blanket of white
several seconds away.
I lift a lock of hair
from your face (gently),
your breathing quickens its pace
as you smile in your sleep.
Back to the window
(that opened as a door closed)
watching the weather
whiten the world,
I smile myself as I see:
no two snowflakes are alike.
One stands out in the storm,
a perfect pentagonal
with sides that no one sees
(but that he looks),
and tries amid the cries
of an isolation
(so profound),
a desolation
(without sound),
a separation
(so unbound)
it steals the soul.
Leave the burden behind
as the door drifts shut
and clicks closed.
To the window with wonder
again I go to watch
the past
pile under the sweeping snow,
that forces a fountain of hope
from my eyes
as they follow the fading footsteps
(vanish)
under a blanket of white.

© Ray Cattie



Anytown
(a guest poem by Steele Fields)

Living mad dog mean
and dying slow
in Anytown.
Emptied out and
somehow splitting
see ms
you’re nowhere
bound
make excuses
make an exit
flick a smoke
learn to hustle.
Leave your footprints
in the sidewalk
barely smile
flex some muscle.

Toss some gravel
till you’re squinting
at a pinprick
in your rearview
while miles of
bum-hitched highways
trail your bumper
like a kite tail.

Drive fast.
Run out of gas.
Get yourself lost
in some little town
with no radio signals
--nothing
but white noise hissing
across your dial like a desert
snake you barely noticed
till it bit you.

Your mind transmits
occasional blips
no one’s receiving
and you’re staring
coyote lonely
into screaming emptiness
the barbed wire twang
from an out-of-tune six string
floating overhead
and the rusty old chord
some blue-eyed
ghost cowboy’s
still trying to suck
out of a cheap harmonica
drifting through you
faint as wood smoke.

Fling
yourself
down
beneath a stretch of black velvet
poked through with endless diamonds
and just enough light
squeezing from the holes to see
--nothing
but the face your memory
air-brushed then erased
and left you spinning and
spooning alone
inside the wheel
inside the reel
inside the real
womb that knows not
the laboring and the bearing
but only the pulling in and
the Returning.

Eastbound
To Anytown.


© Steele Fields