Three Poems by Keith Hoerner

 

In That Said-Same Second

 

In that said-same second 

between

life and death,

 

a child is born 

to a woman—

not quite ready.

 

Ribbons are awarded

to winners of the

McCarthy County Spelling Bee.

 

A bottle of bubbly is 

popped

in Paris,

 

while a man in Colorado is

sentenced

to prison (though innocent of his crime).

 

The world contemplates, 

realigns its incongruities 

in a misaligned universe,

 

tentatively raises the shade on morning 

and blows out the candle—

signaling night.

 

The moon 

swings

low.

 

The second

between

life and death is an unending continuum,

 

one that does not decipher laughterfromtears 

or as in this passage—

poetryfromprose.

 

 

Caught

 

I am eternally 

caught 

in the poisonous web 

 

of your personal tragedies, 

floating 

in the eye 

 

of the tornado 

of your hatefulness – 

and inevitable 

 

eating of me.

Still, somewhere 

between 

 

your fast, your frequent, your furious 

back-and-forth 

feedings, 

 

I can feel the beating 

of your heart as it 

turns from crimson to black 

 

along each dying petal. 

This, but a pressed remnant 

of the love 

 

we could have shared.

You would have done me better 

to do me in 

 

swiftly, mercifully 

disabling my senses. 

But I was made 

 

to hang there, stuck 

and imprisoned 

with full consciousness, 

 

for

your 

folly.

 

 

This Property is Condemned.

 

The windows 

of my eyes, 

are open, 

 

and I see you 

have declared me 

a space, uninhabitable.

 

Your disgruntled 

chidings 

are not screened, either, 

 

in the flaming 

fireplace 

which is your mouth; 

 

I am treated like 

a property 

condemned. 

 

So, I lock the door 

of my heart 

and list it—

 

ready for a person to 

hold the key

and love the place.

 

Keith Hoerner lives, teaches and pushes words around in Southern Illinois.