Long Docent Poems

Duet between Omodele Oluwabunmi and Wems Henry Temmy speaks... cautiously 

OmO
Mother, I forget not thy words
When I was a score and half a dozen
“My daughter, let your heart hold my teaching "
But my heart was...

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I’ve been working since I was twelve years old,
But my first on-the-books job
Was as a sailor in the US Navy,
Gunners Mate.
Six years and three Westpac deployments.
Fifty months of sea duty
Changed me for good and bad.
Over...

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WHOLE AGAIN

While young on the ladder of growth,

I boarded a similar covenant ship;

Having summoned the great Teacher,

And sworn a thick fealty – hinged on

An immutable decision to pave way

For a diminutive obstruction route to glory.



The...

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Welcome.
I'm the one they left behind.
An alter ego of sorts—
just the keeper, the inventory clerk,
interim ghost.

New items arrive every day—
spat out from my boss's pockets,
sometimes still wet, still ticking.
I stack them in corners.
I don't ask...

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The first time I thought of him
His name was playing shortstop;
Too few siesta’s spent, he’s found eighteen.

Stingy Time did swiftly pass us forth,
Spinning nurture, spanning missteps,
Till foundation definition was writ soul-side.

Sparkling child, Number One, 
All...

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Museums are quiet except
For crackling parquet floors,
Wooden squares, a game board:
Checkers or maybe chess 
Of various right angle, grain striations.

Parallel to paintings in oil, red lines
Begin a court for pickup basketball.
But whether subjects of famous...

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I'll remember the museums
And the fine historic homes.
There's been mention of both music
And parade within my poems.

But it really is the people
That will stick inside my brain,
For connections, even brief ones,
Are the gems that I'll...

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Last name here, First step there, only one allay...
Vestige sagacity, flaxen ochroid genes skitter down, 
Diddle drizzled dints to acquiesce an ugly axis,
Whet of whiled grime, tips on me thus to dawn,
In hands of lonely...

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While viewing a painting I liked by Paul Klee,
A docent-in-training came over to me.
Can I ask you some questions, if you wouldn’t mind,
About “Old Married Couple,” as she’d been assigned.

I told her the woman appeared...

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The Docent 
David J Walker

So this is heaven
I said to the no-name frame
Of a departed loved one guide
On a drive-by tour of a place
That can only be seen in 
Dreams…   for now
He smiled
But...

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They fired all the docents
In Chicago. This is why:
They’re mostly old white women,
Though they’re well-informed and spry.

They train for months and volunteer;
That’s right - they earn no pay,
But since they’re old white women,
They won’t be...

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Not many notice I am in drag.
I was complicated,
what with the codes, and the hidden
secrets of last suppers.
In my day
you had to be circumspect,
my works were only
for a select few
like you. Yes you, the spotty...

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