Five Poems by Lee Clark Zumpe

 

reservoir

 

brown snow in the gutters

ashen skies flagging over

the choppy waters

            her face will freeze soon

 

folded inside myself

jagged bits healing beneath

salt scabs hardening my cheeks

            the delicacy of icicles

 

London, 1940

 

the bombs fell into the shadowed places,

the darkened homes with black curtains drawn,

until the horizon caught fire;

 

underground the earth shook,

children wailed and mothers wept

as bits of London fell to flame;

 

St. Paul’s Cathedral stood amidst the inferno,

flickering orange colouring the underbellies of clouds,

while onward pressed the sombre Thames;

 

morning arrived with funeral grey austerity,

the newly homeless picked through skeletons

of smouldering neighbourhoods;

 

mourning victims and praising heroes,

waiting patiently for the smoke to clear,

the wounds to heal, the pain to subside.

 

 

Lillian

i.

 

had it, in fact, passed her by;

or had she

            folded it up for safekeeping –

placed it tenderly

between the pages of the family bible

            or some old Dickens volume

like the four-leaf clovers

she used to find skirting the meadow;

            no, no,

even if she had tried to preserve it

it would have eluded her,

            snuck out with that awful cat

or accidentally swept out the patio door

            one fall afternoon;

she collects her yesterdays, now,

            mindful of the fact she has forgotten

what exactly she is waiting for,

deteriorating a little more each day

until she does not recognize her visitors

            and time itself unweaves,

leaves itself frayed around the edges

 

ii.

 

Lillian left us long ago, now,

            and we had to gather up her belongings,

pieces of a puzzle that will never fit again;

the memory detaches itself as years accumulate

            and dust settles

the residue of life collects

in layers of sediment

            gradually forgetting everything

but the faded cues

 

 

Lautrec

 

You were Paris compacted,

made vivid and colourful.

You were provincial gardens by day;

frenzied cabarets by night.

In the Moulin Rouge,

in Chat Noir and the Divan Japonais,

you alone found humble dignity,

You alone captured unintentional elegance.

You divulged this equitable truth

in delicate brushstrokes,

in the composition of unique expressions

or in the uncanny depiction of motion

upon static canvas.

 

 

White Goddess

 

Outside,

            winter casts her hoary shadow:

            an early frost swathes

the ill-prepared earth,

and the dogwood berries are all too plentiful

on the slopes this year

 

The Oak Moon shivers,

            her frozen tears

            form icicles on balsam boughs

            bowing beneath the howling gales,

already she has grown weary,

and the nights keep getting longer.

Lee Clark Zumpe, an entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, earned his bachelor’s in English at the University of South Florida. He began writing poetry and fiction in the early 1990s. His work has regularly appeared in a variety of literary journals and genre magazines over the last two decades. Publication credits include Tiferet, Zillah, The Ugly Tree, Modern Drunkard Magazine, Red Owl, Jones Av., Main Street Rag, Space & Time, Mythic Delirium and Weird Tales.

Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit www.leeclarkzumpe.com.