Three Poems by Robert Klein Engler.

 

.SPOOKY.

Wind from the blizzard makes
the rocking chair on the porch
rock. Think nothing of it--
just the ghost of summer.

 

---

 

 

.DREAM: GARE DU NORD, PARIS.

The locomotive steam bursts into the night
like a vagrant ghost that leaves in flight.
Far away, the clouds of childhood drift above.
Now I see the love I did not know was love.

 

---

 

 

.BREASTSTROKE.
(ten cinquains)

The heart
goes out to search.
The heart will trip and fall,
but still runs after--waving like
a child.

Some eyes
are deep oceans.
In them we are pulled down.
Lift me, because I don't know how
to swim.

Parsley.
Sage. Rosemary...
Time. Flesh to flesh embraces.
No matter, then. We had our own
music.

Raindrops.
The bus window
is all wet with diamonds.
Now they scurry down--bright little
spiders.

Away.
Gone far away.
The train speeds through gray rain
and foreign streets that shine like black
mirrors.

Blinkers
flash a warning.
They drive south on Harlem,
led by a sedan of flowers.
Just wait.

A wind
makes ripples on
the pond--are they lips or
lashes--hard to tell, not far from
his grave.

Midnight.
tick-tock, tick-tock.
A wind slams the shutter.
The dream of being together breaks.
Tick-tock.

Some men
stare into space
and see wounds everywhere.
Other men by a grace see wounds
and words.

The heart
reaches and then
opens, you know, like a
door into a bright room that is
empty.