Page 27 - January 2021

Lonely Bones

Paul Lobo Portuges

Paul Lobo Portugés is a poet who teaches creative
writing at UCSB, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, and the
University of Provence. He lives in Seaside, California

He hears the busy soil calling
And the haunting voices of flowers
As children play cowboys and Indians
Yelling they're not dead

It's the boredom of the grave
That haunts his best friend
And his once wife alone at Xmas
Waiting for grandchildren to be born

He’s tried to learn from trees thankful
They breath in our breath breathe out life

He often dreams of a miracle for the damage we’ve done to Gaia
While banging on heaven’s closed gates with hallelujahs

But in this tropic of chaos and dread
Where a friend's passing is one sad god
"Flies on me flies on you" she used to say
Or when a lover's done with you and hope vanishes

All he can do is breathe with compassion
Knowing silence is a Buddhist con artist
Though when he hears the light of children
His blood prays for compassion everywhere

So he lives with the good poet's "poisoned acceptance"

Under a cemetery of singing clouds flowers and bees
His sovereign of sadness and the troubled history
Of his mouth longing for a long night’s kindness

Soon he’ll get out of his own way and lie down
With lady earth her breath like green wind
And with his poetry of ink his sound town
Accept his lonely bones surrendering tomorrow for today

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litterateur 7 january 2021