Sample Poems by Gary Thompson

Babel

Wintermorning.  A man
and a woman and behind them
a creek that talks—
it does not murmur or sing.
Tears on the face of the man,
pebbles that need
to be found.  The woman closes
her eyes.  When she says love,
the creek finds a better word
that makes the distance
between them clear
as the crystals of air
floating above the water—
a cloud more sure and biting
than the fog that comes
from their mouths.
 

As for Living

The dawn is dull.
I set all the clocks by your heart
beat, which was fast
last night;  watched SAT
turn mechanically into SUN, then wound
my exhausted arms into sleep.
It’s so easy to throw our hands
up in the air
at dawn and sit down and wait;
to close our eyes and let them fall,
the hands, where they may—
to wake up and rub our blue eyes
with the hand of a friend or the hand
of a grandfather.
Whatever happens, we do wake up,
and the childhood scar is gone.  It stares
from the sky, the morning star.
Christ, it’s so easy to go away
and never leave,
to move the body and save the dream.
To wake up tired in the sand,
sip wine, fall back,
and let the waves pump a life,
like salt, through our bloodstreams.
You see, dear, it’s easy.
And if there is anything harsh
or grizzly or distant to clean up, well…
          the servants can do that.
 

This Morning's Shiver

It turns out we were made small
animals shivering
over this earth with hearts
that pump blue stars.
Our frail gravity, at birth,
was buried like seeds in our eyes.
That is our right.
In the dark, we move our arms
around, panting,
searching wherever we go,
musky air, a wood softened by coffins,
a night pillow of breast.  The rust
colored roots in the eyes
spread out coastal through morning fog.
Do the roots push inward or out?
At sunrise, a pelican flies south,
a shivering white voice breaks
into moan under palm trees.
          A frond drops and never touches ground.
No we don’t understand much, but
this kiss—
one diamond from the inward blue
star of the earth
that shatters whenever another man’s
arm comes near.

Before Christmas

I go down
in spirits, these difficult days
before Christmas, like sand
 
sliding through the neck
that separates bottom from top
of an egg-timer.  Inevitable.
 
And inaccurate, I know.
Forgive the bourbon in me,
ancestral and bottle,
 
sliding from pompous
to silly, bottom to top,
and days that sink or float
 
with love or without.
Forgive the bottleneck
in my throat.