Such Visions

I have seen the hands which willow like
move with liquid fluidity, and I know the eyes
too delicate to dream such visions of violence.
But there on the page passes the trepidation that belies the eyes so lovely, one hopes tears never traverse.
Absorb yourself
into yourself,
a fetus,
when brutal tempests
tamp down on you.
And let your limbs protect when the horns of your demons break forth from your skull.
In the entanglement of arms
and hair
and fluids,
in the entanglement of twisted limbs bent with light refracted
through the prism of social meaning, we can find
ourselves
submerged in water
totally recognized
as we swim like the Pisces we’re meant to be.

  Anthony Squiers__

A Fruitless Science

In Doncaster,
the East Midlands,
old men sit,
on platforms spotting trains,
with journals and cameras
penciling in engine numbers
as they pull
through the station.
They are esoteric chroniclers
marking the movement of stars
in a fruitless science.

  Anthony Squiers__

The Walls of Dubrovnik

The walls of Dubrovnik have stood for a millennium,
stable against the Adriatic’s waves,
stout to wind and earthquakes,
resisting gravity and all of nature’s persuasions.

They are a testament to human technē and
the capacity for work and tool,
to all of human potential.

But, they are also an indictment.
Indeed, it is not the waves and wind,
they were built to resist.

The cannons which peek out from the forts,
are so many accusing fingers,
and may just as well have pointed back in.

  Anthony Squiers__

© Michael Lee Johnson: 4th July 2020 Wave

One Waits

How long does one wait
under gray skies and early dusk
For dawn to dawn the light
of the next day?

How long can one anticipate
that cresting of the horizon
when rays, radiate
icicles, like fragile fingers
hanging from
the naked branches
of shivering fir trees?

In the desperate winters
of our time
it is not god;
but those who wait— waiters
for the warmth of the sun
those who
despair
during the
dead winters
who can bring the
sun of spring.

  Anthony Squiers__