SIX POEMS
Timothy Donohue
AT A GRAVEYARD BY AN ORCHARD
We
know how
The
slight rounding
Of
a high corner
Means
the headstone
Has
memorized the wind
We
can raise a yellow-gold apple at dusk
And
trace with a cool finger
Where
the sunlight sat for hours
We
are much more invisible than that
We
are a name halved backwards
A
thousand times
Living
changes lives
Until
who we are
And
who we were
Are
less known
Than
what the wind
And
sunlight did
The
day these bodies
Were
covered with earth
We
are all energy and invisibility
We
are all someone
We
can only imagine
DEATH COMES IN THE KITCHEN
Death
will come in the window
You
thought was locked all these years
The
one in the kitchen
The
one right above the sink
Death
will be tired
And
hungry and wanting
A
sandwich—all that gravity
Works
up a good appetite…
Light
from the refrigerator
Unspools
on linoleum
Like
a break in the clouds
Or a
temporary shroud
Death
leans into the light
Looking
for cold cuts
Spongy
white breads and mayonnaise
But
you’re too healthy for any of that…
So
the door closes
And
the darkness returns
Until
death finds where you’re sleeping
And
drags you to your absence
Complaining
of a certain hunger
LIVES IN A COMA
1.
Sometimes
I wonder
If
there was another way,
An
ending we might have missed…
It
was late morning
It
was the end of summer
Cars
came infrequently past that motel
A
dog barked
Then
silence would return,
Coating
our lips
And
closing our eyes
2.
We
played hooky from real love for so long
We
lied about our whereabouts so often
Sometimes
we forgot our real names…
Everything
outside that room was always boiled
Inside
we pulled black curtains
Against
the heat and falling bombs
Of
sunlight and friends…
3.
No.
There was no other way, no other ending…
It
was late morning
It
was the end of summer
We
hugged so hard
We
put our lives in a coma--
And
left, in separate cars
INVISIBLE
1.
I
stood in line behind a fragrance.
It
was you. Your face was invisible,
But
it was you.
This
was a long time ago.
2.
An
electric door kept opening and closing.
Pushing
your scent deep inside me,
And
urging me to say something clever
To
the back of your head.
3.
Inside
everyone is a door
They
will not open,
And
a door they will not close—
Choices
must be made.
4.
I
should have made you laugh.
Said
some nonsense about
Your
oolong tea or the candy bar
With
the same name as your father
But
I remained invisible.
NOTES FROM THE LAST TIME
I SAW FERLINGHETTI
"there's no there there."
-Gertrude Stein
Everybody's Autobiography
Weekend-ending.
Runway-runaway
Dallas
to San Francisco 1:10 a.m.
And
where I’m heading it’s 1986,
But
it’s still yesterday
So
much for the times of our life
I
have made a mess of my life
Mixed
the mess and painted with it
To
outline voices in frames of silence
To
take the waiting-for, out of wonder
To
hear silence, with new ears
Like
a poem, and making
That
kind of sense, you left
Ferlinghetti
in your Texas college town
And
headed to his. You see his motel
Room
stuttering, repeating itself in his sleep
Forty-five
degrees south by southwest
The
machine turned, pointing
A
wing at Dallas another
At
San Francisco. You hear someone
On
the ground pointing a finger
At
you. Feathers will fly
The
flight attendant leans over
Picking
up a napkin. You use the word
“Callipygian”
for the first time out loud
She
smiles, looking backwards
She
is happily confused. She will be
Your
friend in the sky
Baudelaire
said he wrote to
“Find
the why of it; to transform pleasure
Into
knowledge.” I do it differently
There
is so much
I
don’t want to know
Between
friendship and love
Comes
conversational botany
A
kind of plant-talk develops
Between
a man and a woman
“Nice
day.” “Yes. I was tired of the rain”
“I
see that bridge we were on”
Says
a boy to his dad in the seat ahead
When
you turn, it’s not there anymore
Your
lips taste like a woman’s cheekbone
Communication
from the neck up
“By
definition, the poet must be
An
enemy of the State” said Ferlinghetti
Afterward,
you drove him to where
He
would sleep, perhaps to dream
Against
the state of Ramada Inn
Tired
and unmemorized
You
are up to 30,000 feet
And
36 straight hours
You’re
slipping deeper
Into
ball turret 36B
A
fish turns in your stomach
It
hears the desert below you
It
hears the cacti and it hears
The
coyotes below you.
There’s
a “there” there
It’s
just that whatever is unclear
Must
be so cleared away, it takes the waiting-
For
out of wonder. Like hearing silence
With
new ears. Or seeing Ferlinghetti
Ten
hours before arriving where he wasn’t
Thirty
years ago
THE PREFERRED EMBRACE
On
a sidewalk,
Snow
falls between
A
man and a woman
Struggling
against late December winds---it’s obvious
Their
separateness is pre-planned
The
snowy gap is precise
And
irrevocable.
There
is no touching now in these lives.
No
looking back, nor at each other.
Just
a wobbly march forward,
Into
more and more invisibility.
What
was the word that sawed them in half?
What
failures of desire
Would
make falling down,
Alone,
under a winter sky,
The
preferred embrace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy
Donohue’s publications include Invisible
~ Poems And Aphorisms , with an afterword by Laura Kennelly (Mandorla
Books, 2016) and Road Frame Window ~A
Poetics Of Seeing (Mandorla Books,
2015), that he coauthored with Dennis Patrick Slattery and Donald Carlson, with
an afterword by Stephanie Pope.
A native of Lorain, Ohio, he spent a number of
years in Texas, where he received a MA in Creative Writing at the University of
Dallas. In a professional career spanning four decades, he spent the first 20
years as a writer, producer and sometimes teacher of print and broadcast
advertising in Texas and Ohio. He spent the next 20 years as a managing
administrator and Communications Director for non-profits dedicated to
providing services to individuals with mental illness, developmental
disabilities and chemical dependencies. He realized, over time, that poetry
could quit him any time it wanted to; but he couldn’t quit poetry no matter
what he did. Recently he founded Donohue Words & Works, LLC, which he
describes as a “transfusional place for words on purpose and works on canvas.”
Visit Timothy Donohue at
donohuewordsandworks.com
He can be reached at donohuewordsandworks@gmail.com
BOOKS
Invisible ~ Poems And Aphorisms , with an afterword by Laura Kennelly (Mandorla Books, 2016)
Road Frame Window ~A Poetics Of Seeing (Mandorla Books, 2015), coauthored with Dennis Patrick Slattery and Donald Carlson, with an afterword by Stephanie Pope.
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