Paul Ilechko
Learning to Communicate
We spoke in parallel languages
improbable words of smoke and elision
we approached the end of the garden
where hedgerows had faded to gold
we could not hear each other’s conversation
so many absent words of steel and leather
we fell back into our dream lives
as once last chance for cooperation
weaving between the hand-me-down furniture
that filled that liminal space
stumbling into parallel walls
built by hand of mortarless stone
it’s fall now
and the days are turning to chill
we embroider onto parchment
our irrevocable commitments to each other.
Monochrome Landscapes
A black sun holding
its place in the sky
in the absence of birds
sun burning the forest
to a crisp blackness
a cage of broken trees
waiting for rain
bone white trees
white bones beneath the soil
no longer remembering
the smell of pine or orange
no longer the feel of drizzle
the forgotten shapes that
the hills made against the paleness
of a January sky.
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, deLuge, Stirring, and The Inflectionist Review. He has also published several chapbooks.