Tim Suermondt
LYRICISM IS LEAVING
She tells me she can’t do it anymore,
the state of the world has broken her.
I tell her the world has always been a mess,
a disgrace, but not every day, not every day.
“Don’t go,” but she does, her suitcase
with a large L on both sides dragged slowly
over ground we walked many times.
I retreat into the house, all the books leaning
a little left and right in obvious sadness,
my unfinished poems in my blue folder getting
restless, fearing for the future. I tell them
I believe she will be back when I start working
on the lines, the metaphors, the attitude
it will take both of us to pull off. Even at this
moment I see her returning on the train,
moonlight bathing her compartment in triumph.
DIMINISHMENT ISN’T ALWAYS PERMANENT
It even bounces back full-throated
to its grand self, when it’s least expected
with the sun surrounding it like a bodyguard,
announcing how beautifully the return
has been, how the rolling up of sleeves
will no longer be seen as a foolish act,
how the promised land in the distance
has gotten a bit closer again, still vibrant,
its inhabitants waiting to usher it in as many
times as possible, extra plates kept on the dinner table.
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems “A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World” will be forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2021. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.