Faith Hope & Fiction

Quality Online Fiction, Poetry, and Essays

Unpolished

Jamie Sheehan

Poetry

1. thoughts on a lover, long ago

trepidation sank
the thought,

and its teeth
into my heart;

i never felt a thing.

2. where the sunshine spills over

early, before the bird chatter, before
the restful still tucked in dream
rise and reach for a different day,
i sit in the shadow of a son

….and burn.

3. home is where the hurry ain’t

scatter, scurry, take cover quick
clouds approaching dark and thick
wolves are howling, owl hoots,
the deer departed, the squirrel scoots

the man in me must extend his will,
survival just beyond the hill
just beyond his reach, he knows,
pretty places, softer faces, shelter from the snow

but that man in me is just a fool,
some damn image I must cut loose
to watch his fearful, rapid extraction
and walk among long dappled grasses

4. +/- Prozac

history hid the apple behind the hands of time
how dreadful is a country road paved with old good-byes
but to walk without a single pause, a single thought of you,
would keep me here suspended, borderline a fool.

now in order to understand oneself you must let go to fall
holding on to anything comes nothing good at all
except of course, in my case, borderline the fool
stuck up in the tree, I see …. the carriage then the mule

5. me against the swirl

it all slips away, as my head keeps spinning,
thoughts gather at the edge of town
staring inward upon my soul,
as the evening star, faint,
falls for a meandering blue…

and I, cascading like a lover caught in circumstance,
hold my breath;
for what’s left to lose?

6. A Lower Case of i

dear mama, don’t you worry now,
my heart it’s a-broken, but these tears they are sound;
i’m treading lightly, leaving little sign,
this life is yours, i’m just a passerby.
if you’re the sun and the moon,
i’m a bowl of cereal on a Saturday afternoon;
oh this is known, for a fact:
you’re a Rolls-Royce and i’m a rusted-out Cadillac

 

Jamie Sheehan, a carpenter, has been listening to his father, Tom Sheehan (a Faith Hope & Fiction favorite), bang on the keys (first his old typewriter and now his laptop) since Jamie first came home from the hospital. As Jamie says: “Most of my writing is done with a guitar in hand but it’s all poetry, it’s all love.” Unpolished is his first submission.

 

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