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Best Poems Written by Bleak Willow

Below are the all-time best Bleak Willow poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Reconstructed From Fragments

As I recall
the physical remains
of [my] childhood 
were left in storage unit number [...]
in [...], a town by a river.

As we drove away,
[never] to return,
dad made me give up
my spending money
to buy cigarettes for [...]

She smoked, and [...]
we ate prickly pears and [...]
I got a sticker in my ton[gue and ...]
the [engine?] block cracked and [...]
she said not to play with the black kid and [...]

We drove for [...] days [...]
in dirty places where people gamble
and eat listlessly at the [...]

Enough.

There is no putting this back together.
There is no finding the parts.
And that's ok.
However it happened, I'm still here.
And this day is dawning unbroken.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

The Crow

A baby crow
cowers in the street,
trying to hide from kids
from dogs
from well-meaning people.

Its parents fret noisily,
its mother raps her beak
sharply, angrily, furiously
on the telephone wire.

A war party of crows
gathers in the giant firs
to protect the tiny one
but how?

Cars go by, slowing, swerving.

When I pick it up
we are both shaking.

Black forms descend
on murderous wings
and I believe them.

I hold the living child carefully out
so all the midnight eyes can see
and this is a moment of disbelief.

I carry her across the street
and set her under a bush
and leave her for her people.

The giant firs grow quiet.

Night falls.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Sisita

I.

A young boy in a desert trailer,
wishes inspiration will fall in him,
pitter, patter, like raindrops,
transforming into keytaps,
on the ancient yellow-screened word processor
that was his father's pride and joy.

The letters are angular, ancient, precise.
like gemstones that are opaque,
on the dumb surfaces of which
are carved crude words from dead languages.

Miles of moving wind cover the land
where the trailer sits, with the boy inside.
The human drama is tiny.
Paper turns yellow quickly.
People hope for something better.
The boy who once dreamed of gold,
will be overcome by mathematics and despair,
and a homesickness he doesn't understand.

But first:
	
II.

It is autumn, and the leaves of gold,
fall whirling from the lonely trees.
No frost yet on the windows, just
a shiver in the breeze.

Now summer's blanket, thin and bare
hangs shredded in the sky
where winter, careless, loveless, fair,
runs endless, bright, and dark, and high.

But I forget where I am, and then
when winter comes the river floods,
the dark eyed deer disappear, and leave
the leaves, the rain, the ash, the blood.

I would like to call the World's Wind
from Heaven's vault, as we did when young,
but I fear no leaf will move, no tree
will turn when all my breath is gone.

III.

The boy's feet grow tough from miles of road,
his ears attuned to the mumbling of the world,
he disappears.

But sometimes a man wakes up
and finds himself looking
for something
he doesn't know what.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Books

Like a solitary bee
Setting aside nectar
In a vast and empty hive
A limited life
in a world of unlimited sweetness
I gather books I will never read

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Metropolitan Sunrise

A gilt and rusted nest of steel,
stone and brick and concrete,
haunted by its own electric soul,
awaits the tangled light of early spring.

Throughout the restless night,
heavy boats have cut across the bay
leaving scars upon its cold
and gray and gleaming skin.

But every sin committed
on the landscape by this sprawling city
suddenly appears to be forgiven
with the rising of the sun.

“Live again, and work.”
A million clocks have sprung.
The ragged threads of countless dreams
that clung to countless minds
are brushed away.

In unison they rise,
they wash,
they work.

The moon alone is left to take its subtle time,
to wander narrow strips of sky,
to climb the steel lattices and gaze away
across the moving clamor of the day.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Drinking Alone

On weekend nights he drank alone
Turning on the phonograph
and dancing with his shadow
House ablaze with light and music
Tables strewn with books and magazines.
Settling into his desk on Monday
He had dark circles under his eyes
And a contentment difficult to understand.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Smile

My mouth stumbles before your smile
Relaxed, yet powerful, like a bow half-drawn
The smile is yours
but I want to give it to you
So I can look up
And see you bend it toward heaven

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

She Will Go

Like a concise rose
she crosses the lobby
knowing her goal,
carrying it out.
Tick, tock, her accurate feet
complete the flower.

A quiet perfume remains
after six o'clock
when late sunlight
illuminates the office
slanting across the empty desks.

But she has a vision,
that hides within her
like a thunderstorm
within an egg.

One day she'll untie her hair
on vast green fields
under darkening skies
and finally be.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Flaw

You said your dimple
Was a flaw
In the musculature of your face.

And then you disappeared.

A year later you called.

From the hissing distance far away.
You were surprised I remembered,
But of course I remembered.

Though I cannot remember your name
I cannot forget your flaw.

Details | Bleak Willow Poem

Funeral At Arlington

Those who went before were there,
assembled in their ordered columns.

I remember white and brilliant stones,
the rolling green of grass,
a clear blue sky no longer seen.

And I remember too this sense:

	A chair was waiting empty
	while a quiet prayer was spoken over dinner.

	In an old garage some tools gathered rust.

	A folded paper waited to be read.

	A face was missing from a night of cards.

The caisson and the bugle and the rifles,
all were brought together for this final call to order.

Then there was the smell of gunpowder and horses,
folded in the sunny wind,
dissolved into a cloudless sky.