Her

it isn't enough to see listen

the gulls cry wildly above

stealing bits of cloud daring thieves returning

on currents of bright air

do they now return what they have stolen from me

it is all the ring and chime at once

merging this other place this other time

a craving sun worshiping sea as far as the eye

witness to this dangerous orchestration of wave upon wave

crashing desperately

onto a shore

less certain

than

I

JPPestana

Her

12.15.2022

 

Loose Ends

 

under the rain shaken free

from the maple's golden shade

from the torrent the day before before

how does it remain in its glistening drops

stay with me in dreamless days and

nights awakened by the sound and tremor

of a life this dazingly (madly)

unaware

JPPestana

Loose Ends

10.14.2022

 

The Last Fall

reach for me as the perfect petals

of the last flower does reaching 

for a failing sun

am I failing with it

and when does one question leave shadows

darker now encroaching devouring

every little thing

rhyme and reason still struggle

unannounced unseen unheard

yet the sky quakes from the silent roar

of her answering

outstretched

eyes

 

The Last Fall

JP Pestana

10.18.2022

 

The Porch

dogs sit idly beside my melancholy

it is a holy right for now maybe ever

we rest in its blunt protections

of a summer morning glaring

in its own creeping heat

I wonder aloud about a heron blue as day stuck

against the palest smudge of leftover moon

why doesn't it just fly away be free from us

from our still willows that have never wept before

that shade each other give easy comfort

dogs leave me and collapse in shadows

pant in the blankness

in the shunning

of anything that

might remain

JP

Updated

The Porch

8.18.2021

JPPestana

 

When Silence Ends

when silence ends

there are no more fresh beginnings

only the bitten bleeding tongue

stale room of cruel stares

you come slowly to the unwelcome

knowing there are only the dreaded circles

dull repetitions of the invisible drum

of crushing middle things

of a dozen or so indifferent crow

searching in a rutted dirt yard

mindless of your

echoless

pain

jppestana

When Silence Ends

7..8 2022

 

Crow Over Corn

o you the most forlorn of all

where are the doors that let you in

I want them hidden chained locked forever

I have driven aimlessly in hope to see the sun dissolve before me

it refuses to do so

lost on a narrow road it comes to an unlooked for circle

a gate with sharp wire a thrush sits stares

barely flies into churning august trees beaten by

a cursed heat

a longing song on the radio of my emotions plays and plays

can a body stop being a body I ask

the air becomes voices over voices a maddening chatter

shattering like hammer to glass

the boy in me runs for home

I never meant for it to be like this

the leaving road narrows more

crow

rowing

over

corn

JPPestana Crow Over Corn 6.5.2022

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Wild Hedge

 

is this anguish

a broken road to

an unmarked end

before he was what

he was well enough

looking back over winter fields

plowed under a weakened sun

he languishes along miles

of wild hedge

allows himself to become one or

the other for even

an instant

a hopeless tangle

of honeysuckle

laurel climbing rose steals senses

from a wandering mind

a horse slowly walking alerts him

to a fluttering cloud

he knows it at once

unannounced a blue jay drops

with drama from

a sweetgum

persuades him

he has arrived

in just the

quick of

time

JP Pestana Wild Hedges 5.31.2022