Tag: Martin Willitts Jr

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).