James H. Duncan

Dirty fingernails

the trains run restless
across town
echoing
through driveways
street lights, the morning
paper on the walk;
no matter how hard we try
we are vulnerable

it takes a certain humility
to watch the last leaf
roll away under
a cheshire cat moon;
sadly sober for years at a time

among the white noise
humming in a virgin southern dawn
the very start of words
begin to twist
in the lungs
like the wind chimes
in the nearby oak;
a tired scabbed soldier
watching humanity try so hard
to ignore new life springing
from dour shadows
clawing the earth with bare fingers
filthy, ringless, and weak
but clawing nonetheless, state by state away
from the rising sun

what the moon never tells anyone
is no one can escape the sun for long





Echo and Waltz

the vibration of living is you
waltzing through my bones
pulsing with the cones and rods of
my vision, of what I see and do not

the echo of your footsteps fills my veins
and your song tugs at the strands of my
minutes and hours, urging me forward
through the shuddering dim of aging

many wishes dissolve against these white
walls and spare rooms where I wonder,
each of them about you, and the desire
to release you from my bodily cage

it would mean sure death, this wish to
free you, to have you. it would mean to strip
my meat from the very bones where you dance—
a door that cannot close once torn open

so you stay inside and I remain without, forever
estranged by life itself, by miles that only heartbeats can
measure. I open little windows and speak in to you from
time to time, hoping that within your own little heart

a man like me will echo and waltz, and love you alone


James H Duncan is a New York native and the editor of Hobo Camp Review. As a lifelong student of the road, you’ll find him picking up non-credit courses in all-night diners, dive bars, used book shops, and on train station platforms minding his own damn business. Apt, Plainsongs, Red Fez, Poetry Salzburg Review, and The Battered Suitcase, among others, have welcomed his work. Information about his chapbooks can be found at http://jameshduncan.blogspot.com


 

Current Issue:
January 2011

James H. Duncan
Douglas Durkee
Taylor Graham
Michael Keshigian
Richard Luftig
Timothy Pilgrim
Bill Roberts
Jari Thymian
Kelsey Upward
Margaret Walther

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