Five Friends - Sunday Afternoons: Five poets gather to share and write poetry together. Listen.

By John Lee, Grant Lyman and Jeffers Bill

Remember when everything in town was closed on Sundays? It was a day of rest, a day to visit the quiet. On every other Sunday five of us friends, who have known each other for 30+ years, sit together open up and tell each other our longings and share poems from our present, past and future. This book of poems is an open invitation for you to joi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Press of Light and Space
• Release date: Sep 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781087870366

Book preview

John Lee

Entering into the Long Now

Some Marriages

Some marriages are a great

symmetrical structures made from

a deck of cards. Everything

stacks up so well.

Then a strong, cruel October

wind blows those lined up

cardboards and they become

birds that soar everywhere.

The ace of clubs flies up

into someone’s sleeve, perhaps

up the arm of someone

we’ve never met before.

The wild deuces head

for the West Texas deserts,

while the King and Queen sleep

in separate beds.

The lazy black jack buys

a house in the suburbs

and pays for the ten of hearts

to go back to college

The rest of the deck quotes

Rilke as they all ascend

into the heavens whispering,

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Our Small Boat

For years you and I paddled

our small boat on the river

of doubt, thick enmeshed foliage

on both shores.

 

The water was black with

the fear that one of us would leave.

 

So we sunk our oars into the deeper waters of

commitment and rowed

much harder than we

should have.

 

Several times we made

camp and built fires

to scare off the intimacy

animals and the smoke

would help keep love

a little hazy.

 

After a night of tossing

firewood and our secrets

back and forth we would

dive into the river to cool

off the promises we made.

They were always invisible.

But we made them anyway.

 

Once in a while we would

hit the white water of

regret and insecurity and

we would cling to each other

for dear life as we plummeted again and

again into the smoother

part of the river of doubt.

 

During those calmer times

we’d talk until we forgot

that we never really knew

how to love

the river of doubt.

This Sunday Summer Morning

This Sunday morning

is cooler than usual.

Me and my three dogs walk

slowly around the quiet park.

We enter into a long now.

The sun rises at the same

pace as it always has.

Even on a morning like this,

I remember our slowness.

I remember and try

never to forget again

that Neruda is so right,

"Love is short, forgetting

 so long."

Ancient Paths

Geese know the ancient path

their parents laid out for them

in the sky.

When horses are born

the first thing they do is walk,

even if their legs are like water.

Animals seem to know what to do

when it’s time.

 

I remember the first time

a woman said to me, Let me hold you.

This was a path I did not recall.

I turned and twisted my body like a

colt leaving the birth canal.

Finally, I fell into the deep grass of her arms.

I lay on my left arm

Until it went sound asleep.

Unlike the newborn, for just a few moments

I didn’t care if I ever stood on my own

two feet again.

Peak Ahead

"Look there is a peak

up ahead," she said

as we looked out the window.

We slid down the flat

West Texas highway in our

1963 faded, blue, Plymouth

Valiant, with a push button

transmission.

 

She took the steering wheel and said, "Close your eyes

and fantasize what is on top

of the mountain." I shut

my eyes, my old, tired blue

eyes. After three or four

minutes I gave up and said,

I got nothing.

 

Well, she said, "Peek into

my world then and tell

me what I’m feeling about