James H. Duncan - Two poems

Hotmail

once or twice a year I scroll down
to the deepest subbasement
of my oldest email account and see
the earliest email saved, Subject: Sorry
and part of the way through she
writes how she needs to end this letter
because she’s starting to cry, but
wants me to know it was worth it
and some days I agree, and some days
I don’t know what to do with all this
black tar sticking to my lungs
worming its way into my bloodstream
clogging my heart, blinding my eyes
leaving me alone and listless on
a silent, cold Friday night in March
but I never delete it, and I never go
back there and read it until enough
new moons have passed that I need
to see where I came from, where it
all began, the place where the cracks
started to form in my peripheral
and grew into this collection of broken
bottles and chunks of rebar cement
moving forward, though sometimes
looking back, Subject: Sorry
aren’t we all?



My Gratitude

there is a Taoist belief
that it takes the dark of night
to know the truest warmth
and brightest light
of the sun

and as such, it takes
a hollow friendship to feel
the genuine heart of someone
who cares, who asks,
“how do you feel?”
“are you okay?”
the most basic sentiments
and syllables placed in a line
like stones leading to a lake
its waters as calm as waking without
an alarm
on a cool spring morning
in soft blue
cotton sheets

and when the words come
you notice

I notice, I see the ones
who ask with nothing to gain,
no claims, no entitlements,
and it happens so infrequently
that one might call it rare

there are enough where
waking on that
spring morning becomes possible,
and that lake of glass and blue sky
rises in my heart,
as do you, your message like birds
along the gambol rooftop
and I will not forget you
I will not




James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine, a collection of narrative poetry from Unknown Press. He writes reviews of independent bookshops and his work has appeared in such publications as Writer's Digest, Pulp Modern, Drunk Monkeys, and American Artist. For more visit www.jameshduncan.com

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