My Cat At Sunrise (After Li Po)
A spider web of stars
seems to encase the moon
in a stifling net,
but the stars are dead,
and the moon
is a rock of lead.
Life and death are mysteries.
Questions without answers
are better left unsaid.
I look at my cat, sleeping
peacefully in my bed.
He’s troubled
by just one thing,
when he wakes, will he be fed.
Grief (After Mei Yao Chen)
I dream I’m a crow,
landing in a field of corn,
but pain wakens me
with a hammer blow.
The sun rises through fog.
Last night, I thought
I saw things clearly.
Today my vision is unclear.
The day is gray.
The air feels like clay.
Dahlias tremble,
in a muggy breeze,
as if they were afraid.
I drink my coffee alone.
My wife’s been dead a month.
I don’t know where she is.
I only know
she’s very far away.
George Freek's poem "Enigmatic Variations" was also recently nominated for Best of the Net. His collection Melancholia is published by Red Wolf Editions.
A spider web of stars
seems to encase the moon
in a stifling net,
but the stars are dead,
and the moon
is a rock of lead.
Life and death are mysteries.
Questions without answers
are better left unsaid.
I look at my cat, sleeping
peacefully in my bed.
He’s troubled
by just one thing,
when he wakes, will he be fed.
Grief (After Mei Yao Chen)
I dream I’m a crow,
landing in a field of corn,
but pain wakens me
with a hammer blow.
The sun rises through fog.
Last night, I thought
I saw things clearly.
Today my vision is unclear.
The day is gray.
The air feels like clay.
Dahlias tremble,
in a muggy breeze,
as if they were afraid.
I drink my coffee alone.
My wife’s been dead a month.
I don’t know where she is.
I only know
she’s very far away.
George Freek's poem "Enigmatic Variations" was also recently nominated for Best of the Net. His collection Melancholia is published by Red Wolf Editions.
