Resident Poets

Once Every Lifetime
when the muses meet
they will say
that summer comes every year
I say that summer
comes
once every lifetime
but only if
you
listen
only if you
care
to listen.
Each moment
carries
a poet
in a cage
dragged through
the
street
***

I cannot hear the peace
In the roar of

the drums

I cannot see the peace
in the brightness of

the bombs

I cannot taste the peace
in the bitterness of

the hatred

My heart cannot feel the peace
in the rough textures of

the street

And I cannot smell the peace
amid the tears of

the gas

such rocky souls we are
when children gather to throw

rocks at

tanks

– David Jackson
***

PASSENGER CREEK
Passenger Creek she calls to me
those boysteps wandering
her banks,
thy banks.
she calls like the ancient winds
call
she calls with the quietest
of voices
your voices
thy voices
Her green waters flow
in me,
my brothers,
my
father.
My mother’s tiny little house
beside the creek
Passenger Creek

– David Jackson
***

well it’s appraisal time and………

Wriggling
wriggling
wriggling on the pin
the eye in the lens
“It’s a bug”
“No
It’s an asset
A resource”
“No”
“It’s a bug”
Wriggling
The pin!
Oh, the pin!
Sweating on the slide
The heat!
The heat!
The heat of the light.
The eye again.
“It’s a bug.”
“No, no, it needs a speech, yes that’s it, a speech.”
“Stop it
It’s getting away.”
“Don’t let it get off
the property.”
“Damn.”
“It’s gone”
Look!
Over there!
“It’s a butterfly!”

***

The best painter of our time is wasting away somewhere
the greatest scientist is working

while we are chasing Madonna
with cameras

somewhere some lonely Beethoven works tonight
and maybe
throws some paper
some paper which maybe
will be
in some museum
some
day.
He beats his head against some wallpapered wall.

Somewhere some unknown poet taps taps taps at the keys
leaving scraps behind
to be thrown away by
elvis

– David Jackson

***