Sample Poems by Rane Arroyo
A Time for Peace
Oberlin, Ohio
It’s a storm of forgettable leaves
falling. The Protesters have gone
home to sniff each other. I miss
house music, arrest, dressing. All
is gone or going – except for evil.
Each lit window offers white in
all of its shades, each illuminating
a life, pause if seen from far away.
Bare trees are too beautiful to be
tragic. A young man without a lover
throws leaves into the air but he’s
not buried alive. It’s a time for peace.
*
I’m in Oberlin and dreaming of Puerto Rico:
Miguel and I run from genuflecting snipers
on a green cathedral’s roof. We find refuge
in a basement where there’s a fierce fiesta
for a returned son. He’s an albino and glows
from the free rum. Miguel and I bow to him
and Hell pulls shy sparrows from our heads.
where lovers carry books they
will indeed read or cities where
When I wake up in my hotel room and look
into the miracle of a mirror, a relief: I’ve no
wings and still responsible just for myself.
*
Goodbye, birthday moon, adiós.
Do you prefer quiet towns like this
only windows are allowed stares?
You’re a giant and yet prove how
large the sky is. Or is this small
town not a challenge? Listen:
someone’s playing songs from a decade
ago – and look, shadows of dancers!
There’s much joy that doesn’t root.
*
And I’ll miss you most, dawn:
the returning birds, blue by
the inch, the visibility offered
to all but the dead. When I
travel, dawn follows me and
when I stay at home, dawn is
full of news of the world just
beyond my imagination, but what
stories does it tell of my quieted
life where I sit at a quick window
to watch blue jays scream to each
other? So many languages to
learn before I’m fluent in silence.
Come Back, Blue Jay
Let the cats interrogate far birds
to be forgotten after the sun returns to
its black hole throne. Daylight keeps me
safe from forever. No one has quoted
joy in years and yes it hurts
to be so jauntily human. Look!
A bluejay: blue, sky blue, like sky.
Clouds are slow period marks
in a profound letter to Now.
Why do we ever feel unloved?
Fragile Twilights
Routines: bored groceries,
bruised laundry, the shrinking
Sunday paper. Odd light in
this yawning Toledo window:
a mango’s heart. The courtyard
is as unkempt as an Old Testament’s
prophet’s beard. A train, no—
a ghost, Earth sighing. Tornado
warnings as Pluto exists somewhere
above my head which is as gray
as a volcano’s pillow. When
did I lose my love for this land?
*
Sparrows are surprisingly
querulous just before
noon. Can there be too much
yellow? Or are they tired
from ever fighting over
Kingdom Crumb? The alcoholic
across the red courtyard
tries to light a cigarette but
flame is no one’s heirloom.
The gray birds are back
for one last mad assault
The neighbor smokes at last!
He is joined by his albino
wife who places his hard
hands on her tragic breasts.
*
Göethe, now dead for
hundreds of years, was
once as young as I am
this Indian summer.
My poor neighbors stack
empty boxes, collect
other people’s cans of
corn, dyed beets, oxtail.
This courtyard needs
a big flea bath, a miracle.
Winds bring cloud shadows,
gifts never to be opened.
All this will also vanish—
the mud, the pink flowers,
birds nesting in our ruins.