12 Is there a secret in the flowers? When we began, your hair, now black, was blonde. You talked about the desire for knowledge. You talked about it endlessly. You looked up the name of the flower in a dictionary. 13 Is there a secret in the cemetery? Yellow leaves […]
Leonard Gontarek
Leonard Gontarek: from Green
5 There is a creek that curves past the Rose Funeral Home carrying dusk & oil & pieces of purple light & soggy leaves from plane trees. How are you not seeing this? The current is here outside the fourth story in the sycamores. A clear & different air that does not match […]
Leonard Gontarek
Leonard Gontarek’s books of poems include, He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs, Déjà vu Diner, and Zen For Beginners. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Field, Verse, Fence, Handsome, The Awl, and The Best American Poetry. He was the 2011 Philadelphia Literary Death Match Champion. He is a foremost translator […]
Leonard Gontarek: from Purple
The daffodils & tulips are red & yellow, purple.
Leonard Gontarek: Home
You are crying for something in the past. Fair enough. Your mother is dead here. A praying mantis eats through a leaf. They’ve changed over the streetlights to the safer, apricot-hazed ones. Bang your fist on my heart if you understand. Raunchy, whispering ghost, one streetlight on earth, out. The maples & moving clouds go […]