Craig Shay - Three Poems

House Sitting

She dreams of plum colored skies.
She says, that when you open a human’s mind
you see what is inside a pomegranate.
I sat in her apartment, looking through
a thousand oversized art books.
The lights on the wall brightened,
natives from an African painting
came to life and we had a feast in her bedroom.
We roasted boar, sang and fell asleep.
I enjoyed that day playing hooky from reality.
I closed my eyes and thought about the books
written in blood and when the wise men
returned from the kitchen
I thought I saw angels and spacemen
outside the window,
landing atop the roof
of an Manhattan apartment.



Waiting for the Flood

Water floods
the streets

glass high-rises
are melting

I am sitting
in a room
with a thousand clocks –

They tick slowly

Dripping
water
can be so melodic

The voices
forming
new words –

Finding
new time
as one clock
expires
it makes
me smile

my soul
sings
on the paper

it is not a clock

I am sitting
on the roof porch
with the junkman

wind chimes
are his
children laughing

His wife
is inside

her fever
causes
the ice to melt –

His cigar smoke
rises
and forms
clouds
in the shape
of a thousand
stray cats.



Cognitive Dissidence

There are nights
I almost forget
theses shackles
on my hands and feet.

I almost feel free –

Then I remember
the streets are still on fire
and there are no firemen.

I watch years pass
into madness,
as the fires rage to destroy.

No one talks about the rising smoke clouds
engulfing the sky and blotting out the sun.

No one is ready to confront the avalanche
of violence and fear.

No one believes it is going to destroy us.



Most recently Craig Shay’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in: The Bitter Oleander, Counterexample Poetics, the Sound of Poetry Review, Clockwise Cat, the
Smoking Poet, Skidrow Penthouse, and the Bicycle Review.