Two Poems by Martin Willitts, Jr.

Not Seeing Eye-to-Eye

  

Not seeing eye-to-eye, avoiding seeing

what is in front of us, when all we could see

was clear sailing. There is no boat in this story.

No oars to cling to. Only the drowining.

 

Not looking into the other’s eyes is a sign

of avoiding the obvious. What were we supposed to see?

The sign should have said: Danger ahead.

But we cruised as if the roads were speedways.

 

We ignored the turnoffs. We thought we knew

where we were going, and it did not matter

how we get there. We forgot to go together.

We could blame the maps. I could.

 

Now you are somewhere else. I got lost on my own.

I found another traveling companion.

When I look into her eyes, you are not hitchhiking.

 

 

 

After

   

No matter, burning darkness

or lack of indelible light, there are

always two kinds of unkind deaths.

Neither is silent restlessness,

nor noisy orchids.

 

This is echo and lack of echo,

guilty annexes

where heart refuses to listen.

Two dearth-whispers

from summoning.

 

Disorderly angels follow

banging soft gongs. What remains

is silence, sweltering silence.

Burnt once by loss, seared twice

by memory, flailed skin.

What goes away returns

lost in ruins.

 

 

 

Martin Willitts Jr has four full length poetry collections and over 20 chapbooks including recently, “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, ebook, 2013). His forthcoming poetry books include “Waiting For The Day To Open Its Wings” (UNBOUND Content, 2013), “Art Is the Impression of an Artist” (Edgar and Lenore's Publishing House, 2013), “City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2013), "A Is for Aorta" (Seven Circles Press, e-book, 2013), "Swimming In the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press, 2013),  and he is the winner of the inaugural Wild Earth Poetry Contest for his full length collection “Searching For What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013).