Poetry for People
Who Don't Read Poetry. Spirituality for Me
and Maybe You.
Chris Spark
"[Spark] definitely has something going here: the quick take, unexpected turn-arounds, lots of playfulness... delightful in many instances." —Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate
soundless the sun
​
soundless the sun
this time of day.
i walk so slow-
ly not needing
to turn
my awe into words.
not needing even
to call it mine.
and i think of Vincent
and believe
that having died
he’d be now more
at ease and walk
with me as slow
as this.
i’d like to show him
the tree i stopped
in front of, the one
whose leaves i loved
and will
not describe
except to say they turned
each one
in the wind
like tambourines turning
light green dark green light
green dark
and we’d walk
past the tree shadows long
across the lawn
note the mallard
couple oddly
in the grass along the path
how the sun
splatters paint so thick-
ly on the picnic
tables and
i’d ask him
what color he’d say
the wind-
ruffled pond was
and it would take him
forever to answer
it’s my privilege
​
it’s my privilege
to be watching
a huge stretch
of the bay outside
this window,
noticing more
the sheet of water like steel
pocked by a trillion
hammers than
the two coots floating
in the foreground;
that is until a third
breaks the surface
without a sound, just
appearing—then
a fourth, a fifth,
and a sixth, all popping
up—seven,
eight, now nine of them—as though
the ocean—ten—
were hatching birds.
until i count twenty-three—
floating there,
as if nothing
had happened;
the orange-grey smears
and daubs
of a new day
behind them—just floating
calmly
in their ragged brotherhood,
as if they couldn’t give a shit,
as if the world
were not remarkable
I want the big
​
I want the big
payoff. The big payoff
is death.
What? No
the other
big payoff—not the death
one, the one
I'm killing
myself to get.
Free this Morning
a collection of poems
(selections below)
when the plovers fly
​
when the plovers fly
low across
the salty pond
there are two
​
of them, the one
and the reflection of
the one.
at the clothes-optional
hot springs
​
i saw someone
naked from behind
man or woman
i couldn't tell
i needed them
to turn around
to know if
i should be turned on
you have a theory
​
you have a theory.
you look for evidence.
you come home
each night
and tell your theory
about your day.
she's seen you
through some dark times.
your theory loves you.
she'll put up
a fight at least,
when you ask her
to move out.
​
6 x 9 paperback, 143 pages