Praying to the Silent God
One does not use words.
One breathes.
In the center of breath
there is a light.
In the center of light
there is a heart.
Keep praying without
answers.
Answers are breath,
light, heart, as true as
vapor, as frangible as skin.
—
Weekend Alone
“Strange: inability to be alone, inability not to be alone.
One accepts both. Both profit.” ~Albert Camus
Left alone for the weekend
I do not have to answer to
anyone but my bowels
and my dog. I am forced to
find reserves for the
emptiness. I have reserves.
In the morning I am gray
as a babe carved in stone,
but at night, before I turn
out the light, I am alive like
any enlightened dying thing.
—
Cardinals at the Feeder
Among the duns
and grays,
against a backdrop
of dirty snow,
they arrive like a
flush, he
blood red and
she in elegant topcoat.
A squirrel, a tit,
a wren,
a steely dove: they
become a
frame for the lovers’
bright panache.
The schoolchildren
pass reverently;
some cross
the street, some
themselves.
One small boy,
his afro a nimbus,
skirts
the couple to
bring me the news
that among
the throng he thought
he saw
Richelieu, in his
glory, The Red Eminence.
—
© Corey Mesler
COREY MESLER has published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Good Poems American Places, and Esquire/Narrative. He has published 8 novels, 4 short story collections, numerous chapbooks, and 4 full-length poetry collections. His new novel, Memphis Movie, is from Counterpoint Press. He’s been nominated for many Pushcarts, and 2 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife he runs a bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.
