three poems

By Eric Hart Samuelson on Sep 20, 2013 at 11:32 AM in in poetry

Three poems by Eric Hart Samuelson: "Almost Time," "It's Tomorrow," and "Not So Distant Memory" from his upcoming first book of poems in 2014.

Here are three poems, "Almost Time," "It's Tomorrow," and "Not So Distant Memory" from my upcoming first book of poems to be self-published in 2014. I write free verse most of the time, but there are a few forms I seem to gravitate to every now and again, one being the pantoum. The second of these poems, "It's Tomorrow," is a pantoum — a form I learned about at some point in poetry writing workshops at University of Virginia with Charles Wright, Father Joseph Brown (pen name luke), Debra Nystrom and John Hayes… all of whom I am grateful for every day.

If interested, here's Apple's desktop dictionary definition for pantoum:
[pantoum |pan?to?m| (also pantun) noun; a Malay verse form, imitated in French and English, consisting of quotations with an abab rhyme scheme linked by repeated lines. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: Malay pantun].

The poems:

Almost Time

I knew it was
and didn't know
what to do – void
of a sweet caress,
a heart of gold's
absence, faint murmurs
ride the cold wind
only so far. The o's
resound in sadness
and pulsate as I
hunch over pages
to fill the spaces in
with a deep red ink.
There's no explanation
for lament, chained
round heart to soul.
Immersed to bust them
loose again, phantoms
whose traces are found
in cavernous desire. Left
to the harsh delight
of solitude
for however long,
almost time.

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It's Tomorrow

Suddenly it's tomorrow
And the world ceases to ease,
Preposterous as it spins
Over and again in mind

And the world ceases to ease,
Keeps right on rolling along
Over and again in mind.
The thing that eludes expression

Keeps right on rolling along
With no regard for boundary.
The thing that eludes expression
Implodes and the inevitable follows

With no regard for boundary,
Foreboding what wells-up within
Implodes and the inevitable follows,
Bottom line, it's an inside job

Foreboding what wells-up within
Never able to fathom why.
Bottom line, it's an inside job
And gotta get the hands dirty.

Never able to fathom why,
Preposterous as it spins
And gotta get the hands dirty –
Suddenly it's tomorrow.

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Not So Distant Memory

Unravelled again, are the crazed threads
woven into the years, once taught
from all the toil of a tapestry
as intricate as insanity. If memory
serves to spin, then spun I am –
the pastels of being human
have their place among the layers
where it's easy to take to the shapes
like shadow and dust,
shadow and dust.