Three Poems by Richard David Houff

 

Rebound

 

There will be occasional slips,

faltering steps within a dream

 

Backward and forward

we go into the odd

 

An unknown someone

is leading us forward,

tripping into the blue

 

We follow along in what

could be a real cliff-hanger

 

And as always,

we wake up just in time

to grapple with coffeepots

 

Passing Through

 

1.

 

in a mist

rising off the left bank

we flounder over

half-eaten thoughts

 

i press your back

against wet tree bark

leaving a soft mould of shoulder

 

the tree accepts your shadow

 

it is filled with our breath

 

2.

 

we stop to look

at rotten screen and broken trim

from a side door

 

a torn curtain waves

 

blatant poems run and hide

 

later

i reach for you under rumpled sheets

but your side of the bed remains unblemished

 

an indented memory

pattering footsteps

a bell

car doors

the faint sound of a distant engine

 

3.

 

on the sidewalk

there are ancient worlds

of cracks and lost tongues 

 

escapees breaks for change

but the rain is relentless

atoms split and diffuse

across the intersection

 

with buried hands

i step into a momentary pause

 

4.

 

floating above surface

i fall into night dream

 

shrouded in uncertainty

i stumble over misplaced lives

along the avenue

 

where we stand together

waiting to be gone

Sandpit Fastball

 

I feel the need to say something

before closing another chapter

but it seems almost futile

 

The distance of childhood

is fading from memory

and my steps are much too slow

 

It would be nice to wake up again

but it’s all so damn tiring

 

Richard David Houff is an award wining author from Austin, Minnesota. He currently lives and writes out of St. Paul, Minnesota, where he edited Heeltap Magazine and Tap Book Publishing from 1986 to 2010. His poetry and prose have been published in Aldebaran, Brooklyn Review, Chiron Review, Conduit, Louisiana Review, Midwest Quarterly, North American Review, Osiris, Rattle, and many other fine magazines. His most recent collections are Night Watch and Other Hometown Favorites, The Wonderful Farm and Other Gone Poems, and Shaking Hands With The Dead.