DEAR EUGENE

Guest poet, Chloe Gilbert

Chloe rode on a train from Southern Virginia to Northern Pennsylvania, recently. One of the passengers, a kindly old gentleman sitting across the aisle, caught Chloe's imagination. She said he wore a bow tie and had the kindest face. They never spoke, but Chloe felt that he was someone special - she even felt a certain kinship toward him. Then, just as she garnered enough courage to make conversation at a stop in D.C., he stood up and departed the train.

We have all wondered about strangers that have traveled with us on trains, buses, planes....we come up with life scenarios for them. It is a poet's past time. Right?

This poem was churned from Chloe's thoughts, while traveling on the train.

DEAR EUGENE

I can’t help
but sneak a peak;
What spell have you
cast over me?

At a glace, to have felt so meek -

From your unintended presence,
I cannot break free.

Have you traveled far?
Could it be that you
are wondering as well,

If my story is just as spectacular

As your story in my mind dwells?


Inside, mindless masses hurry in a blunder,

As the world beside us both passes,

Creating even more magic and wonder -
Empowering my will to leap and ask.

Alas! You are now escaping this
Metal monster and leaving me behind.

Thank you sweet stranger
Whom I will never forget,
For leaving me soft and kind.

THIS VAGUE FEELING

A vague feeling
has arisen in me,
with no real meaning
that I can think of -
and apart from any idea
I might have had recently,
but truly affecting and moving,
as with any other vision in life.


It prompts my mind to toil -
all thoughts tendrilling upwards
and outwards, trying to catch
somewhere - and take hold.


My mind fills with
some moonlit view
of barefoot wanderings,
and a distribution of figs
to the sick and dying –
their sweet, sticky lips
encrusted and tasting
of nothing but blood.


An odor of turpentine emits
from some dark alleyway,
where doors are open to show
dimly lit rooms divided by
unfinished canvasses,
wet with paint and going
white with mildew.


And there is not
an infinite number
of stars in the sky,
only a few large ones,
spinning and shining -
like dying martyrs,
and like living lovers,
eking out their incredible
days of pleasure and pain.


This vague feeling…
This stab in my heart.

MORNING HOUR

MORNING HOUR


what warbler’s watery
trilling could ever entice
me from this sovereign light
and lure me into the shadowy
world of a mysterious thicket -


where each wary step is
infused with whispered
petitions and every sharp
thorn brings forth visible

and agonizing stigmata