[New-Poetry] "Poems That Arrived Without a Briefcase"

[James Cervantes]

Poems That Arrived Without a Briefcase


In the museum of very modern art
the guard shouts "Don't touch that!"
then swooshes back into a cardboard
cut-out of himself unable to speak.

*

The gate works only in the writing of it
and will not open in real life where
people have a compulsion to touch.

*

A glint occurs only in special circumstances
when the observer is of a certain height
and carries himself a certain way when the sun
peeks out and strikes the pebble just so.

*

A leaf flies past.  But the windows are up.
A maple leaf.  You are traveling there.
But the windows are up.  The red leaf
is in the passenger seat, traveling south.

How quickly you made it real.

*

We harbor thoughts as if they were boats
that know a language of flags.  When they leave
all we have is their breeze and ragged edges of color.



-- Jim
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