Featured Poet: Chip Corwin

Current


At last,
they finished the tightrope
to the moon.

We walked on out our
window, and after some time
our shadows upon the earth were as
long and distant as a comet’s tail.

We reached the moon and
strolled down her blue
unpaved boulevards,

and shopped in her
round empty windows,
and slept on her cool stone fields.

From a dewless savanna
we watched the world rise
half dark, turning like a sonnet
between sudden moonlight
and white dawn,

and we wondered what
new was burning.





Pod


The sun exploded and
engulfed the Earth.
“Isn’t this fun?” you said,
as we rode the last beam
of light out past Mars,
and through the rings of
Saturn, through galaxies
as black and clear as Egyptian glass.

We went all the way around
the edge of the universe,
until we saw the familiar
sight of our own, old
moon, looking dimpled and crestfallen.
“Hold on now,” I said,
as we sped past, out into nothing
certain.





Seam


I have never seen
this landscape
except, of course,
in my mind:

All it is is
a sea of pines,
split sidelong
by a chilly
trout stream
held firmly
by blue sky.

It is beautiful,
and I would like to
paint it,
so I wouldn’t have
to work so hard
keeping it alive. The problem is,
I am no good at painting,
and, anyway,

if I were to
paint it, I could never
take it with me to such
wild places, or

look at it in
the dark.





To Autumn


I’m not sure
how alone
I feel
any
more

seems
things always
go back
to leaves
this time of year

how they turn
pale before
red or yellow

how they die
first, then
shine,

and then there’s the people
gaping

piling them
up in the yard

burying children

the old
driving
hours to
see every last one

whole families
smiling in front of
the carnage

I will just look
at them

there goes another

if it lands in my driveway
I’ll park on it






Chip Corwin teaches English at Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois.



© Copyright 2009 Chip Corwin