A permanent home and museum for poets and poetry

Poems by Rich Villar

Back to Rich Villar


Ars Poetica #8

 

A night like this will pass without sleep, and she
is the first and last thought—

at a keyboard, a notebook, a soft soundtrack
coaxing the players keeping time

in her stories.  She will not tell
her mind to play another’s game.

She will give no coin to the organ grinder,
color her world unfamiliar.  She has things,

things, things, always, but they will wait
their turn while she reads Erich Fromm.

She wakes precisely at 12:56. One perfect cup
of Bustelo.  The laugh only she knows,

the one she keeps to herself when she
says yes, and the universe bends to you.

She is the bridge between climax and denouement,
sleeping between the pages of books, surrounded

by handwritten notes, and no one is answering
the door until she gives place to what is

intertwining itself in her fingers, that is,
she is the architect of stars this night

and every night, adoration is adoration when she
says it is, and she has always been Amor.

This is how you love her. This is how you will lose
your sleep, why you will never be the well

into which she drops her voice.

 

-from Comprehending Forever (Willow Books, 2015)

[divider scroll_text=”BACK TO TOP”]