Three Poems by Gregg Norman

 

HEADFIRST

 

She is grief-stricken

Overcome with pity and concern

For tiny lives

She handles them

So gently

Speaking softly to them

Cradled in her hands

She gives the tall window

A sidelong dirty look

And lays them carefully

In a long planter

On the deck

Where they can recover

Or not

There’s nothing else to be done

It happens often

Sometimes they flee

A small hawk

Sometimes it’s

Only the reflection

Of the trees on the glass

We are all deceived

By life and death

I’M BUILDING A WALL

 

To shield me from the can’t-waiters

And the race-baiters and the we-haters

 

To keep out the us V them

The women V men

The auto-didactors

And the over-reactors

 

To keep away

The deep-fried drawl

About how y’all

Should build a wall

 

I want a wall higher than conspiracy

Deep fake and fake news

A wall of all I’ve learned

A wall of books

(my wherewithal)

 

A wall where I can go

To lean on my elbows

And watch it all

Decline and fall

And pretend it all

Has nothing to do with me.

THE STRAY

 

The lines just appeared

From somewhere

I don’t know where

Maybe from the woods

By the road where I walked

Maybe they’d been hiding

With their hungry voices

Their words trailed

In the evening air

Tendrils of thought

I thought I ought

To do something about

The lines were disconnected

Hopping and skittering along

Behind me

Like a fearful pup

Tired of living alone in the dark

When I reached the cottage

The lines were still there

Dogging my heels

Dancing outside the gate

Wanting to come in

When a poem follows me home

I have to keep it

Gregg Norman is a Canadian poet living and writing in a lakeside cottage with his wife and a small dog who runs the place. His work has been placed with many international poetry journals and literary magazines. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize.