Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonSanctus Spiritus
There are churches where the Holy Spirit sleeps in a vase waiting for flowers. The bells don't arouse him, neither the fusty hymns nor the sexless sermons nor pious feet shuffling toward the meal of bread. But when a bride comes before her nuptials, tickling him with...
As If Everything Can Be Measured
I am at the beach. The sun is going down. Crimson fills the sky. A man comes up and asks me to leave. Is this your private beach, I ask? No, it’s public, he answers. Is this your private sunset, I ask? No, it’s public, he answers. Then what’s the problem, I ask? There...
Elephant
The elephant is reprehensibly couth, he eats what he knows with his nose and his mouth. You would never guess his delightful pursuit, because of his ponderous gray flannel suit, which gives the impression despite his great size, he's more a businessman in a disguise,...
Thickness
At my window seat in an airliner high over what I supposed was Nevada I look out at the left wing pointing in the direction I assumed to be south. On the wing I see rows of rivets attaching silver skin to ribs and spars by workers I preferred to imagine were...
Result
And still, she couldn’t see the craft carrying her through life. If she wasn’t doing it, what was? An undetectable boat? Someone rowing. Not her. Or perhaps an invisible sail. That would make sense since the wind itself is invisible. One could not see the wind but the...
Covid-19
You never know where lethality is lurking. Is it the shopper in aisle ‘B’, with the toddler, milk, bread, and feminine hygiene products? Is it my neighbor leaning over the fence to ask how my wife and I are doing? Is it my wife who returned from the beauty shop or is...
Doing
All day long, all life long, I am aware of what I am doing. All day long, all life long, I am unaware of what I am doing. The danger: to assume that what I am aware of doing is all that I am doing.
Reading in the Year of Covid-19
I sat in my garden reading, a fly landed on my book. Hand raised to swat I changed my mind. The fly walked across the last page of the final chapter. Then I heard the fly sneeze. Sooner or later, I thought. The fly or me.
Hitchhiking to the Apocalypse
Need a ride, he said. Yeah, I said. Where you goin’. This way, he said, pointing straight ahead. How far, I said. All the way, he said. To where, I said. The end, he said. The end of the road, I asked. The end of the world, he said. Okay, I said. It beats going alone....