One Moment Please

By R. Jerome Gibbons

This collection contains sixty poems and one prose piece. Their content encompasses his past, his moments of recognition, and his love of poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499033809

R. Jerome Gibbons

R. Jerome Gibbons was born in Chicago and spent his early adult years studying for the priesthood. Though not destined for this vocation, its influences left him a lifelong scholar. Philosophy, history, religion, and literature are his chief loves. His travels and places of residence have includes South America, Africa, China, Mongolia, and Europe. His poems are wide-ranging and often quixotic, all unified by a distinct voice. They reveal an acute ability to capture the moment and a stunning imagination. He and his wife now reside in Oak Park, Illinois.

Book preview

one moment please

in this photo

a brief encounter

two people

on a Paris street

their shadows almost touching

a working girl for sure

apron down to her ankles

lush hair whorled in a bun

possibly a laundress

or a lady’s maid

lovely as could be

the man

some sort of hauler or wine peddler

an extravagant wicker apparatus

strapped to his back

a seamen’s cap neat on his head

shading his eyes intent

these two are certainly attentive

even interested

I’d like to think flirtation

or even assignation

but maybe not

maybe just a routine errand

in keeping with their station

either way a moment of intense fragility

witnessed by the onlookers

caught in the frame

perhaps more concerned with what we do not see

that lanky old man

Eugène Atget

finicking with his tripod and camera

they seem a little bored with the whole thing

as well they might

art in the making

a jerky quanta

of fits and starts

producing an illusion

of irresistible necessity

for one moment

please

Two Duets

The shade browses

in the oak opening.

Tethered.

*

A marsupial

stand of pine

hugs the dark.

* *

In the early evening stillness

a rowboat

on crutches

with heft and glide

parts the water.

*

This pond has no time

for tides.

Tonight

its surface barely touches the shore.

My eyes breathe

in between the stars

and their reflections.

Voyeur

I saw you save your warmest smile

for the tea leaves

in the bottom of your cup.

You press them out,

one by one,

endearingly,

flat on your desk.

Unshrivelled and naked,

watching them closely,

you see veined corpses

with still a hint of green

from a far off

sun filled day

in China.

Rust

Rust gradually decays

as it lusts for

more

shriven none

ever comes

flusted out

by myriad rains

and winds

and hails

for just

a little

more

rust

Dialectic

I. Doctor Zhivago (the movie)

He sits in the cold room,

hunched over

the black leather-topped writing table.

One candle snubs the dark.

His fingertips from gloves jut

like cow’s nipples.

No, not mammalian nurture,

but a scratching bird.

A bird-hand fits and starts

the trace of its strut on the sheet

blood-ink.

He crumples, scrawls, crumples.

He begins again.

The music soars.

II. Pasternak (the poet)

A slim volume

passes from hand to hand

contraband.

Thumbed pages of Russian alphabet.

The deaf see ants in a marching band

sprawled over battered