Five Poems by David Alec Knight

 

The Dark Eyes


The light that pierces
poses riddles and facts past.

Within us and without us
we trip too high and we
fall hard low, we drowning
flail cry then crawl rise
through the screeching creeks
and the screaming crackle.

Will we wonder
hot and reddening
why we are here, when
we should have died
sleepily quiet before we
found ourselves hangfired?

Posterity will miss where
we go and where from, lost
in aimless deserted tread.

 

When we come
to the thin blood
point of sifting ashes
will we dive down dead
and submerge as we once
were prior to our birth?

Will we rip out of the ground
crying with angry shocked joy?

When we leave nothing made
in life we are little else in death
but a marker of bones disheveled.
We will find only that ever felt,
unseen lurid coldness within
as one reality recedes away.

Feel Her move from Her throne
of nothingness, Her face
revealed, She has raven
black roses for eyes.

The Light Of Dying

If we lived
at the speed of light
and we shone
a light ahead of us
we would never catch up
to the light we shone:
we cannot outrace ourselves
on the continuum
we find ourselves.

We can shine, share
and can believe
in parallel worlds
where for every world
on which we die too soon,
is one awaits alternately
where we live far longer.

We can shine, share
and hope until the last
in every ray
-- the shine
in a broad toothy smile,
in bright sparkle eyes
-- the shine
in metaphor
of memories
once made.

Being With

I am with
the bird
and their broken wings,
fallen to apathetic pavement.
I am with
the oak
fallen in the lightning storm,
a wound of electric scorch.
I am with
the drowned
in the turbulence of the sea,
waves dark and light indifferent.
I am with
the strong winged
eagle, surveyor of cloud,
seeking his mate.
I am with
the blade of grass
grown through city cracks,
uncut and tall.
I am with
the water
ever seeking level,
wherever water flows.

 "Oh No... There Goes Tokyo!"

As soon as I came in the house
that afternoon, I ran up the stairs
and into the kitchen for the radio.

When I was outside playing, one
of the other kids said the radio
was playing 'the Godzilla song' hourly.

The radio hadn't been something
that interested me up to that point:
it sounded like mumbling static fritz.

But this was music that WE could relate to:
someone had written an anthem for us kids man,
we monster kids and fans of the king -- Godzilla.

And when finally the song came on...
I just couldn't turn the volume loud enough,
as I laughed: this was my kind of rock n' roll!

Let the babysitters and the teenagers
have their "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", for we
were quite happy with OUR song, "Godzilla".

Mom seemed pleased something new interested me,
until she said, "Turn it down! The guitars are loud!"
... I have to turn it up, so I can hear the words!




Left In The Backseat Of A Locked Car


As pages turn,
the villains scheme
and the hero saves the day --
unless it's ... 
"To be continued in 30 days!"

Any disappointment
in an unfinished story,
is not as annoying
as the man at the window.
He leans against the car acting
as if he belongs there leaning.
This is the first time a smile means
something other than what smiles do.

I keep the doors locked
no matter how much the old guy
plies, as he talks and as he knocks,
buried attention in stacks of comic books.
There isn't anything wrong, he says,
he's really quite a normal guy, and
aren't you bored, aren't you lonely,
aren't you wondering why you were...
Left in the backseat of a locked car?
What is it you're reading, what is it
you're thinking, anywhere you wanna go?

... Go away you old man, you're really wierd
old man, why don't you leave me alone?

The persistence in reading
and tuning him out leads to him
walking away, shaking his head.
Soon I get bored, soon I feel safe.
I unlock the door and walk downtown.
I spy an SF book store and go in.
I have just enough to buy some 100 Page
Tarzan's with cool Joe Kubert covers
and issues of The Comic Reader.

The freedom from parents
and from a strange adult who
bahaved too familiar rise up
on my way back to be...
Left in the backseat of a locked car.

David Alec Knight grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. David has had many poems printed in American and Canadian journals and anthologies. Recent poems have appeared in print and/or on-line in Verse Afire, The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal, By The Wishing Tree, and Poets For Ukraine Volume 1. In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, The Heart Is A Hollow Organ, soon followed. David works in healthcare.