New Poems
by Richard Schnap

Traveled Path

 

The Greeks believed

That we face our past

While our future waits behind us

 

And so I see a room

With a door that won’t lock

And windows that can’t be opened

 

Where love is a shadow

That emerges in the dark

In a bed too small to hold it

 

While an orange sunset

Paints the bare walls

Till they seem to be made of gold

 

And as I stand looking

I feel at my back

A wind neither hot nor cold

 

That carries a voice

In a strange language

That seems to both laugh and cry

 

 

 

 

 

December

 

She clutches her cane

Like a lover’s hand

To guide her over

The ice-thick bridge

 

That leads to the church

She’s known since birth

Where her baptismal tears

Were first washed away

 

But now as the hours

Of her life contract

In the grip of the winter

That may be her last

 

She wraps tight her scarf

In the frigid wind

As the trail she leaves

Surrenders to the snow

 

 

 

 

Fresh Shadows

 

She sees the world

Through a smeared lens

Where the faces she passes

All melt into one

But it does not matter

For their words betray

Monologues of madness

From the same sad script

 

Where the young girls rage

At what they cannot own

But only can steal

When no one is looking

As the black clock spins

Withering their youth

While no one hears them

Weeping in the night

 

 

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