tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11574951474934282472024-03-12T20:26:59.233-07:00Frank Dixon Graham PoetryFrank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157495147493428247.post-54116058003731530342011-12-31T22:02:00.000-08:002011-12-31T22:04:55.782-08:00Cognitive Therapy.<br />
<br />
You say one thing, the therapist another.<br />
Shared secrets from a sofa, clock ticking.<br />
<br />
You tell only what your heart knows.<br />
Your being becomes a childhood --<br />
everything you are.Frank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157495147493428247.post-57592658871077081022011-11-04T21:58:00.001-07:002011-12-31T22:04:27.990-08:00Out On the Reach.<br />
<br />
Out on the reach that binds<br />
the earth to sky to sea,<br />
<br />
there is a green beacon,<br />
searching out the drunken ship.<br />
<br />
Empty vessel brightens,<br />
lessens, torches and speaks --<br />
<br />
giving light as the moon spills<br />
tunnels of water, wave over wave,<br />
<br />
spray taking spray.<br />
White foam, blue foam passages<br />
<br />
cleanse, wash, and whistle<br />
the pulled-back beach<br />
<br />
like chattering salt-bones.<br />
Age reaps the calloused rock;<br />
<br />
a chitonous shell drinks the sea<br />
from the breath of the sea.<br />
<br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">First published in Convergence Journal</span>.</em>Frank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157495147493428247.post-16833203113123621432011-11-04T21:56:00.001-07:002011-12-31T22:16:21.851-08:00Iraqi Children.<br />
<br />
Listen, ear to pillow, hear them weep.<br />
Say something so the children can sleep.<br />
<br />
Board the windows, the noise of a jeep.<br />
Say something so the children can sleep.<br />
<br />
Survival is nothing, play is a leap.<br />
Say something so the children can sleep.<br />
<br />
No mother to read to them, soul to keep.<br />
Say something so the children can sleep.<br />
<br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Published in Poets Against War online.</span></em>Frank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157495147493428247.post-6421088994362862152011-11-04T21:55:00.000-07:002011-12-31T22:09:29.109-08:00Magnolia Blossom.<br />
<br />
You read to your child, poems,<br />
picture books, the way the scent<br />
of a magnolia blossom fills the room.<br />
Midnight the fountain is alight,<br />
swans curl around the water.<br />
The long neck of the mother<br />
tells stories to her cygnets --<br />
each page a drop, each book a pond.<br />
Your hand around her hand,<br />
her head upon your chest,<br />
a life outside your lives never exists.<br />
There is no other imagined place.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Published in <em>Out On The Reach.</em></span>Frank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157495147493428247.post-14503746237280903752011-11-04T21:52:00.001-07:002011-11-04T22:47:04.624-07:00Conquistador.<br />
<br />
Rock of water, bone and cockle,<br />
though sallow-cheeked and dappled,<br />
your bow still stands in sand and sea.<br />
<br />
Here lies your final anchor<br />
your keel left creaking in the wind<br />
Chrome and slip-stripped,<br />
your turquoise sulking hull echo<br />
the love-and-hate cries of your captain.<br />
<br />
Dank and splintered,<br />
teak planks form a fallow deck -<br />
your mast a withering tree.<br />
<br />
Fish wrought nets and brine bleached lines<br />
tell of your faena with the sea.<br />
<br />
You reflect the water,<br />
her frayed nap upon your breath,<br />
each wave painting<br />
your brackish body.<br />
<br />
In mustard sky you look stranded<br />
and sunken.<br />
Even still, you sink deeper, deeper.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Published in <em>Harvard Scriptorium.</em></span>Frank Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18238961421422043848noreply@blogger.com