NOVEMBER POETS

Poet: Darryl Willis

Donetsk Revisited

I wake in the cool gray dawn of Donetsk

in summer time. The city of roses

is filled with a million faces:

sweet and somber, lovely and lonely.

My friend, Taras reads me his poems

as we sit in the park but no one can hear

unless they close their eyes and dream

of prisons and soldiers and solitaire.

I wander Kovanykh Figur among

the fairy tales and fantasies.

In Shcherbakov, two lovers are found

kissing among cascading springs.

Across the bridge the brass padlocks

remind me of my loneliness.

I extend my hand to trace an outline

but her image is gone: her eyes, her lips.

And the lovers stroll with arms entwined

in the cool gray dusk of lovely Donetsk.

Chasing light

I held out my hand for you and dreamed

the day you would reciprocate.

Perhaps you did as we ran

full speed into the night. We chased

the light into the dawn. I knew

something bright waited on

the other side, but all the gold

that glitters is not for me: nor was

it for you, it seems. That

which sifted through our hands and hearts

were the ashes of what we hoped

but was never meant to be

for us. At least this was the lie

we kept repeating. And after thirty-

five years down the road

the self same lie we still repeat