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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Parallel Poems

Who is writing a poem right now?
How many of us are there?
One in ten, in a hundred, in a thousand?
And what are they writing about?
Can they build, paint, compose, invent?

Why are they using words?
Looking into space, measuring distance,
groping for an invisible door?
Calling out and following their echo?
Trying to pick out something to write about
from old shirts, faded memories,
mountains dissolving into air.
Ocean sounds that trickle away
barely discernable above a heartbreak.

And what will they do with their poem?
Will anyone read it?
Hear it recited?
How long will this moment of time endure?
All the hands writing a poem,
gazing into the far away reaches of themselves,
and turning away from their words
like a campfire gone out,
to be discovered as ashes
by someone passing.

Published inIndex of all Poems