“poem” broadside #301, Stolen Wind, by Hugh Thomas

why

by the window

rain in my arms

*

the wide boulevards

trailing blue smoke

*

his sad smile

prepared

*

waiting to speak

to death

this happened

we were alive

*

notebook

the tricky steps

and green panoramas

*

after lovemaking

combing

orange streaks of light

*

i was never anything more

than the perpetual threat of rain

*

food and pleasure

the lake and the sky

little songs

that elude me

*

coffee

meanwhile

meanwhile

*

waiting for

the nightingales

we say goodbye

*

I am a tired, bleary-eyed man

in love with a beach

*

the scaffolding comes apart

the heat, the light, the green rice fields

a few clouds

slowly making for that further shore

Stolen Wind

by Hugh Thomas

above/ground press broadside #301

Hugh Thomas teaches mathematics at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. Heart badly buried by five shovels, a chapbook of his poetry, was recently published by Paper Kite Press. “Stolen wind” is composed of words and phrases from the chapbook Green Wind (above/ground press, 2010) by Ken Norris.