Excerpts from
37 Muses
Copyright © Greg Philby
Copyright © Greg Philby
Bicycles
This is where they come,
the spent summers,
the 10th birthdays,
the first days of school
and the last,
the jars of fascination,
the first kiss and
the first hand up a shirt,
the deep breaths across Keep Out fences,
the first bike
where did it take you
and the one after that
where did you take it.
you don't remember now do you
but it doesn't matter because
this is where they come
where the spent summers of you come.
Copyright © Greg Philby
Laundry
Copyright © Greg Philby
There they are, pinned up and cleansed of you,
hanging by slack hips and shoulders,
the skins of who you've been,
your Tuesday, your Saturday, your yesterday,
your formality, your casualness, your privacies,
all of them freely easing in the breeze without you.
What are you now, I wonder?
How have you decided to appear?
And will you matter? I wonder this,
as I listen to the pleasant flapping
of your most recent pasts.
Copyright © Greg Philby
Copyright © Greg Philby
Lighthouse
Copyright © Greg Philby
If you put a hope out there,
it might hold farther into the dark
than you would ever think.
Maybe it can hang on, hang on
with its bright stubborn belief
against the ever pounding
pounding drub of No.
If you put a hope out there,
it may never make it
all the way across the sea
but it might stand brave.
And that is reason enough.
Copyright © Greg Philby
Copyright © Greg Philby
Locusts
My heart, on the left.
My soul, to the right.
All you have to do
is climb.
Copyright © Greg Philby
Copyright © Greg Philby
Copyright © Greg Philby
Rails
Which way is forward.
Which way is regret.
They are both cold steel.
How do you know?
To the past or to the future.
To despair or to a chance.
Looks the same, doesn't it,
strung out to the dark.
I think of the ragged many
who followed the rails,
who hoped upon them,
who rode them to their best belief
of which direction was which.
They disappeared
around the bend,
like that one ahead of me, now.
It is cold steel
draped in silence.
Where did the wishful go?
Which way is forward?
Which way is regret?
Copyright © Greg Philby
Waning Moon
Copyright © Greg Philby
The trees, tonight, are giving up. The locusts rattle weak and scarce. I do not like them without their confidence. A dusk bird calls, falters and calls. Now calls no more.
This is the way, isn't it, in the end.
Of day. Of night. Of me. Of you.
Walk into it and you will see.
But here comes the moon, on this side of full when it decays and must bear its losses and imperfections across the sky for all to see. She brings her erosion with grace. It is the truest moon of all, and it is a beautiful night.
Copyright © Greg Philby