Tag: Mike James

The Letter by Mike James

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

The Letter

Your six-month-old letter
stays on my breakfast table
between salt
and pepper shakers.

Some mornings,
I trace the envelope’s outline
imagine a braille
my readings might have missed
between toast,
soft-boiled eggs,
and black, chicory coffee
not quite bottomless
in my white cup.

*

Mike James makes his home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He has published in hundreds of magazines, large and small, and has performed his poetry at universities and other venues throughout the country. He has been nominated for multiple Pushcarts, as well as for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His many poetry collections include: Leftover Distances (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog), Portable Light: Poems 1991-2021 (Redhawk.) In February 2023 he was named poet laureate for Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His newest collection, Back Alley Saints at the Tikka Bar, was just published by Redhawk.

Grief by Mike James

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Grief

Bitter at the calendar, those red-marked days and
Turned pages, bitter at the window’s light and
The light switch in an empty room, bitter at the moon
And Taurus and Cancer and astrology’s best guesses,
Bitter at a broken dial radio and a working faucet
And soap not strong enough for every stain

*

Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee. He has published in numerous magazines, large and small, throughout the country. His many poetry collections include: Leftover Distances (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), and Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog.)

After a Line by Robert Bly by Mike James

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

After a Line by Robert Bly

Taking the hands of someone you love
You enter another country
Where, day-by-day, scars become valleys,
Hills are creviced with loneliness,
And every bird knows silence as well as song.

*

Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee. He has published in numerous magazines, large and small, throughout the country. His many poetry collections include: Leftover Distances (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), and Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog.)