Tag: Martin Willitts Jr

Two Kinds of Silence by Martin Willitts Jr

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Two Kinds of Silence

My grandfather never spoke much —
he let his work speak for himself,
a part of the sacred silence,

whereas, my father could hardly hear,
and I wondered if this was the other part of silence.

I learned how to bend horseshoes from grandfather,
yet I never knew if my father could hear me.
I found myself in silence’s intersection,
like wheat tips in wind or lips moving without words.

Silence was the wrens swooping like the gate swinging;
cows moving their soft bodies into the far fields.

*

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired librarian. He is an editor of Comstock Review. He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, December, 2020; 17th Annual Sejong Writing Competition, 2022. His 21 full-length collections include the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent books are “Harvest Time” (Deerbrook Editions, 2021); “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022); “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World (Flowstone Press, 2022); “Ethereal Flowers” (Shanti Press, 2023); and “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023).

Communication by Martin Willitts Jr

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Communication

I never knew how stubborn my father was
until I tried to teach him sign language.

I know the universal sign for “stubborn”.
I fold my arms tight to my chest
and pout like a toddler.

To sign “refuse,” shrug,
open palms upwards.
It can also mean “I give up,”
or “I don’t know.”

I learned how to be stubborn from my father.

I persisted at trying, not wanting to quit.
The sign for “repetition” points
both index fingers at each other
which make small, tight circles.

People who don’t want to communicate
circle and don’t meet.

*

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired librarian. He is an editor of Comstock Review. He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, December, 2020; 17th Annual Sejong Writing Competition, 2022. His 21 full-length collections include the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent books are “Harvest Time” (Deerbrook Editions, 2021); “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022); “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World (Flowstone Press, 2022); “Ethereal Flowers” (Shanti Press, 2023); and “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023).

Two Poems by Martin Willitts Jr

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Manifestation

As I sit in the room of my mother’s grief,
my father’s unused chair remains mute,
holding inside its arms his absence.

My mother keeps me in her head,
refusing to let me go
where the goldfinches are active at the feeder.
So, I listen like a mourning wall, as she wails
from the deep well of sadness.

As a child stirring mud
freshened by a sprinkler can of water
trying to find the right consistency
I wanted to create a mud pie for my father’s desert.
In the background, birds were doing rounds
like they taught at school,
how and when to enter after one group is finished
with layered waves of music. Even now,

in the present, I think of goldfinches
taking turns at the feeder, row
after yellow row. I wait to speak
when my mother’s sob subsides and crash
against the shores of the room.

I recall the pride offering my mud pie,
leaving muddy palm prints on the doorknob,
tracks of brown footprints on the carpet.
My father looked down like a curious god,
so that his glasses slid to his nose tip,
and declared it was too perfect to eat.

My mother bawled louder, a nose-honking sob,
declared she didn’t want that story
or to remember the yellow birds dancing at the feeder
and how she had to purge my clothes, and plunging me
fully dressed in the bathtub, and wait
for the water to stop being coffee colored.

I thought the story might make her smile a crack,
but I made the sadness worse.

The door to my mother’s grief
locks me in shadows. I feel as useless as dad’s shirts
empty and drooping in the closet.

Even a deer, far away, in the woods
beyond the train tracks, holds its breath
afraid to exhale, not move so jerkily, not to stir
the silence.

Silence is that empty birdfeeder, and the way it sways
when the birds realize there isn’t any more.

I sit and listen to the sadness gather steam,
a train barreling down the tracks. I sit
in my mother’s grief room,
and I do the only thing I can do:

I listen.

The next thing I know,
my father’s ghost sits on the chair.

*

Talking to My Brother

Now we are talking, like forever,
as long as weather finds the impossibly still fields.
It’s long past time for talking like this,
although we are as quiet as the wind.

It takes a while before the conversation can begin,
before it can ever end, so the silence stretches
long and far as breath to reach a far dandelion puff
or the sun chasing the moon’s skirts.

We are below the wheeling of starlings,
punctuating the quiet with their etchings.
We have to begin somewhere. Someone must talk,
or the lack of conversation will swallow us.

Perhaps we should start somewhere, say the weather
is becoming more unpredictable,
and connect it to how we need to be connected.
But that’s not what happens.

We grow old in our uncomfortable feelings.
Regardless, another day will come and pass
if we say nothing about the gap of years.
I must talk or this meeting is wasted.

I start. We begin talking, like forever.
This is how to rekindle love. One step forward,
two awkward step, three easier.
There are some bridges to mend, now he has cancer.

This is one of the tools. For you see,
there is a different kind of love for a family member
when you had to pass plates of mashed potatoes
or sit in a tent outside telling ghost stories.

*

Martin Willitts Jr is an editor of Comstock Review. He won numerous poetry awards. His 21 full-length collections include the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent book is “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World (Flowstone Press, 2022). Forthcoming is “Ethereal Flowers” (Shanti Press, 2023).

Two Poems by Martin Willitts Jr

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The Story of Absence

In watercolors, it is helpful to leave blank spaces
for the viewer to fill in, splash in their own colors.

An empty net needs filling, says the fisherman,
to the silent reflective lake. Grandma says, leave
one imperfect stitch, and an eye will balance it.
The hint of absence is important in jazz.
My father tangled in deaf silence,
pieced together meaning.

In watercolors, it is helpful to move fast,
let colors collide, let dry, hope the impression lasts.

A hummingbird
left behind the impression of here-and-gone,
emptiness and filling.

Mother says my imagination is bedeviling,
Sometimes, in life, it is better leaving some blanks.

*

Rain and Afterwards

The sound of rain — the hammering of roofing nails.
The cold, purple sky shivers
and broods,
prowls over us, blocking sunlight.
Rain’s haggard face tells both a new and old story,
as tender as first love
entering the brick house of our hearts,
making us sing for no reason,
singing loudly, not caring
if our song disturbs complete strangers.
My soul eats up this music, can’t get enough of it.

*

Martin Willitts Jr, edits the Comstock Review, judges New York State Fair Poetry Contest. Nominated for 17 Pushcart and 13 Best of the Net awards. Winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2020. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including Blue Light Award “The Temporary World.” His new book is “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022).

Two Poems by Martin Willitts Jr

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Unlimited Love

The narcissus flower’s everlasting promise to return each spring
does not include lasting forever. There is a limit to love.

Every living object cannot last. It is terrible to know tulips
only last a few days, yet we go on our daily habits,
never noticing if they were red or yellow or white.

It seems foreign to miss those opportunities,
their absence, their intensity,
their souls leaping out of the dead.

We wait for birds to sing in morning mist,
their brushstrokes like chamber music.
We do not want to miss noticing those moments —

not even in the precision and evenness of rain.
The slow death of the orange narcissuses
proves absolutely nothing with life lasts forever.

The heart travels into endless searching,
like a thousand geese
tugging the sun across the velvet sky by long red ropes.

The sky blurs so we don’t have to see
the stupefying numbers of galaxies trying to contain
all the names of the missing,

or the ones found dead,
bodies loosening
into dragonflies skimming a pond.

*

When Prayers Form

Sometimes, I walk to where the world has not yet begun,
and wait for it to catch up to me. Sometimes, I can’t wait —
I’m so excited about starting I begin without the light.
Then, sunlight splits the ground from the sky
into a slow unraveling. But I can’t wait for a beginning or
its dramatic flair. I keep moving, dragging the day behind me.
I keep time in motion. And, when I wait by the entrance of light —
its ooze and flash, I bristle with anticipation.
There is no boundary between start and finish.

*

Martin Willitts Jr, edits the Comstock Review, judges New York State Fair Poetry Contest. Nominated for 17 Pushcart and 13 Best of the Net awards. Winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2020. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including Blue Light Award “The Temporary World.” His new book is “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022).

Daily Greetings of Love by Martin Willitts Jr.

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Daily Greetings of Love

In the tight, compact storage,
there’s room for overflowing love.

Inside love, there’s room for all of us —
pearls of star-jewels, asparagus,

stuff we cannot even imagine,
objects we cannot even name —

firecrackers of love, the illusion of fire
from the arbor lights for returning boats,

stars that witnessed the Cretaceous period,
the whole periodical table of love.

*

Martin Willitts Jr. edits the Comstock Review. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections includes 2019 Blue Light Award “The Temporary World” and “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022).