Villanelle & Sometimes

VILLANELLE

When clouds gave way to rain

you stood muddied with a secret

hidden in the pockets of hope

and turned dark whispers over

a new love, a new slight

when clouds gave way to rain

how did this winter shower

change each hopeless lament?

kept in the pockets of hope

hope that slept in you, a holder

or deepening otherness meant

when clouds gave way to rain

how fitting for you to cover

the smiles of your disinterested lot

kept in the pockets of hope

but that was all you saw in a lover

diabolically patient, emphatically lost

when clouds gave way to rain

SOMETIMES

sometimes I start a poem in my notebook

and just as quickly rip off the page with drafts I’m not happy with

preferring a clean white to start over

sometimes life is this instant

me looking at a photo of grandma

rusted heater trying to come back to life

drunken kids singing outside

sometimes it is just remembering

North Atlantic ocean air with its serene quiet

while smiling strangers fish nearby

sometimes its just a window

I open to let in a dream I orphaned long ago

and forgot to bring up

sometimes its like Owen says,

‘a metaphor’

then I become an old gravel path leading to a forest

where I’m a storm that rains, that slaps curtains and trees

wet with presentiments of another life

sometimes life is in books

heavy with forgetting

debated solitude

words that say time is nothing

sometimes a train ride is enough…