Poetry: The Lighted Window

Bundled away in rooms, sometimes joking,

Sometimes timid, but suppressed and tidy

Always, lies our disrespectful future.

It looks out between the cracks of shuttered

Windows as, ignorant and cold, we walk

The irregular streets between welcome,

Nondescript, even terrible buildings,

Searching through dirty drains and gutters

For a brilliant coin or so many pretty faces.

Then one night, by chance, we look up

Towards a still lighted window and catch

A glimpse of an ugly, ridiculous face

Carelessly staring back at us

With forgetful eyes, clutching a tangled map.

 

 

Sample Chapters

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Poem for Anna •  Mandelstam and Mayakovsky •  The Lighted Window  •  Alone with the Years •  The Poet Tires •  Something there is •  La Madrugada •  Postcard of a Golden Retriever •  Shellfish •  Miguel Hernandez •  At the Edge of the Ebro •  Gone •  Playing Cards •  That's Where I Belong •  An Abstract Perfection •  Pearls in a Glass •  Poem for Susie •  Mornings in Malasaña •  Leo •  A Garbled Message •  Gnome •  Old Friends •  More About Penguins •  Ghosts •  Poem for Nelly •  Good Friday in Salamanca •  T.L.P. •  What It Is About •  The Blind Man And His Guide •  The Smell Of Winter •  For No Other Reason •  Poem for Linda