Let’s say you’re on your last thin string
of hope your kids are hungry
you’ve lost
your minimum wage job with no benefits
your 2006 Chevy needs a new muffler
two rear tires an o-ring
for the oil
leak and your left wisdom tooth aches like hell
Your string of hope frayed and a little wet
is in your pocket one early spring
morning
as the sun rises on the first robin you see
Let’s say you smile Let’s say you feel
the face of the world slowly turning toward you
so you
warm your hands on a cup of tea and begin to sing
– David James
Author’s Note: I wanted to write a poem of hope since I found myself writing mostly “end of time” poems as I got older.…
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it’s raining rats and dogs
or ferrets and hampsters,
carp and salamanders—
hell, you know what I mean, a hard rain
smacking the windows and grass,
pooling into mini-lakes in our back yard.
the sump pump, my hero,
is working on a fifteen second rest cycle.
i guess we need it, it’s spring and all,
flowers and bushes and trees taking in the rain
to create, again, our garden of Eden
minus the apple tree which we cut down
with the full knowledge
it was dying. a mercy kill. but it’s stuck forever
in my memory of this place
which we call home, for now.
there’ll come a time
when we’ll have to sell, when this house
will be a burden
we can’t manage, and some new family will move in,
two kids and a dog, and the house will wrap its arms
around them, and it will become their home,
not ours.…
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from the north/the low clouds float/
single-file/ heading south along
I-75 like a slow army of fluff
it’s late April and snow’s predicted for tonight
i want to be a weatherman in my next life/wrong
or right/you keep your job and there’s no recourse
when i look up/the sky slowly moves over me
and i envision the cloud soldiers in those gray transports
smoking a cigarette/drinking a glass of rainwater/
chewing on hail chips/joking around/saying prayers/pleas
to a silent god to let them live another day
isn’t that what we all want/?/another chance
to get it right or at least not screw it up so much
this time/i won’t turn my back
and walk away without a glance
this time/i’ll tell you exactly how i feel//
i’ll run into your arms and lift
you in the air/swing your legs around/
both of us laughing and kissing and collapsing
in the field
this time/i’ll realize everything///in some strange way///
is a gift
– David James
Author’s Note: The older I get, the more I want a second chance in life—to go back, knowing what I know now, and have a re-do.…
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It rained all day and then the next day and then it rained for the next one hundred years. Sometimes it came down hard and other times, just a light mist. People got used to it. It was expected and normal, like the fact that, in the morning, there’d be air to breathe.
People sunned in the rain. They swam and had parties, played ball, rode bikes, cooked out, drank wine and beer. People made love in the rain, divorced in a downpour, washed their cars in a drizzle.
In dreams, people often imagined clear, sunny days. They imagined dry fields and lawns, trees swaying in warm sunshine, lakes and ponds as smooth as a sheet of glass.
There were always a few in each town who couldn’t take it, who let the constant tapping on the roof and windows drive them nearly insane. …
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