Ryan Clinesmith
Three Poems
Meditation (On Fort Scott)
Brick bound avenues, “The Gun Capital of the World”
where my grandparents retreat to escape their age,
where I first learned the essence of disembodied sound
from bugs that lay empty. Shells of life, leaves
spread back into a past so roots can stay
in the place that great grandma lived,
where grandma sits and sends me texts
my love and I ignore with sports
like watching cats box on deck banisters,
anxious wind chimes their theme song.
We play too, lose the frisbee in the Japanese garden,
—gates closed for months, lost
so we can have something to look forward to.
We won’t scale the wall, yet have no qualms
with breaking park rules. We are the “super spreaders”
mom rails against, and grandma fled—
a circle game of posy-petals or leaves
buried on our path from years ago.
—Generation and games with cousins
involving pinecones and high ground
claimed by age, not ability. Youth is disembodied,
cicadas’ shells under shoes in the morning.
A sound from the past, jasmine cut by disks,
orange light letting loss be something placid.
Meditation (On Escape)
If they cannot return at the end
will they try to get back home,
and if they cannot get back
am I left to conjure them, pretend
I’m walking between my bed
and theirs, where once they sat up
to console my terror, wrapped
together, ancient gods, I asked,
“may I see your faces?” but they
lay blank, waiting as if mask-
bound mannequins. Silent, I listen,
look out for them, mistake news
as king and savior with thousands
at their bidding, all faceless,
turned away, traffic blown leaves.
Meditation (On Absence)
If there are no bees, no swarm to peak
my mind when bugs disperse
into the body of our neighborhood,
will I see the wound of silence
all around me? “Lee’s Gardening Truck”
parked at the post office for weeks.
I imagine the truck as less than what it is,
and when I see it towed I remember
Lee’s cat on the porch across the street.
Would I be less worried about absence
if the cat didn’t cast a shadow that travels
a distance size cannot account for?
I’ll ring the bell. I’ll even wait.
It wouldn’t matter, doesn’t matter, these days
I’ve resigned to sit on my porch, grow blue,
amidst wind drawn bees and playing crows.
—Submitted on 06/02/2020
Ryan Clinesmith is the editor of The Poetry Distillery, as well as the poet and writer in residence at the Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City. He graduated from Emerson College and is an MFA candidate at Hunter College. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Glint Literary Journal, First Literary Review-East, Gravel, The Merrimack Review, Blueline Literary Magazine, and other journals.
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