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Poems 2005

Poetry Index

Out of My Skin
Monarch
A Matter of Scale

Heat Wave
Poet and Pet
Awakening
Rebirth

A Reasonable Life

Snapshots 2006
Haikus
Hush and Listen
Faces
Lizard Thoughts
Thunder
White Rose
Mother of the World
Finally

Poems 2005 —
Passion & Discontent
Absence
Blind
Dance
Dry
The Wake of Disaster

Evening
Mama's Tears
Nude
Old Furniture
Pertoglyphs

Rest
Saved
Sounds of an Empty Promise
Entertainment
Sycamores
Three Quarters
Vientos del Mediterráneo
Weavings

Battle
Giving In

Poems 2004
The Dissappearance of Lao Tsu
Nameless Beauty
Commuting
Memory Game
Every Little Thing Counts
Landscapes of Yo Yo Ma's Brazil
Miles (to Miles Davis)
The Colors of Piazzolla's Tango

War and Peace
Making Friends
Old Glory
Kabul Update
Take Heart
March Madness

Poems 2003
Johnny Cash
Between Heartbeats
"Naked Poetry"
Sunflower Sonnet No. 1.5

New York City
My NYC is not your NYC
SanitationWorker, NYC
Gentrification
Passing By
Belly-button Renaissance
West Chelsea

Poems 2002
Crisis
Finding Each Other
Kindred Spirits
Meteor
To Our Youth
At Sunset
Questions
Hollyhock
Holland in Winter

On Society
Mirrors
McKinney X-Tex
Lady Liberty
Making Friends
Old Glory
Walking

Life's Lessons
Child's Life
Crashing Surf
In Search of the Unknown
Love at First Sight
Holding Hands
Grandpa's Tools

Musings
First Snow
Impressionism
Anonymous
Downcast Eyes
Sagrada Familia

In France
French Gardens
Air Show
Cell Phones 01-04

Churches
Lovers in the Castle



The Wake of Disaster
(after the tsunami in south Asia)

You reminded us
that you breathe,
rebellious mistress,
that life lies beneath
the shifting civilizations
that adorn your skin like tattoos,
beneath the shanties and resorts,
bracelets of cheap trinkets,
around your oceans and wilderness.

You made us see
our lover untamed –
we expected docility,
like the peaceful face
of the child unclaimed
in the morgue,
her frail body discovered,
washed ashore
by gentle waves.

We’d like you to remain at rest,
a coy, tropical princess,
passive like that girl,
eyes closed, mouth unstressed,
no longer gasping for breath,
her blue bodice
draped over her stilled chest,
a calm, inviting sea
edged by a skirt of floral green.

We dug and raped
while you slept,
littered your valleys and hills,
built teeming cities where people
cling to life like vegetation once did,
but without roots anchored
in your fragile flesh,
we ignored your beating heart
and your delicate breath.

We say we love you
but not your moods,
as life bursts forth, renewed
with tempests, and floods,
your generous heart sustains
with volcanoes and earthquakes,
rocking us with a mother’s rhythm,
to comfort, even as you smother
your dear, unsuspecting children.

 

© 2005 Richard Sidy

 

© 2006 SNS Press
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