Two Poems - Mike Foldes

The best time to read poetry

So, when is the best time to read Poetry?

In the morning, I think, when mind

is clear as the sky at night, dark space

to be filled with the light of Poetry’s fire.

Where else can one find inspiration

set like a lens over the wandering eye?

The focus, there, is on the meaning behind

the words, the float a lender takes between

sleep and dream, that willfully unconscious,

self-inflicted unguent of parallelism.

In the afternoon, I think, when the words

like rain settles dust settle doubt

raised in rooms of ambition and conflict.

We are strung like amber beads in the thread

from breakfast table to work, and home again.

At night, in blue chair’s pocket beside stones

warm from the hiss and crackle of orange flame.

And, wherever one is astride the jealous universe

whose hands cup the beating heart

dripping sparks into mouths of caves,

the existential uterus where

galaxies and amnesia mix

in sweet harmonics that direct

the dance of mating dragonflies.

leave me alone

the beauty of the land,

i think from the edge of the road

between cut cliffs that rise

left and right, a man-made crevice

clefting the horizon,

is the freedom they evince.

an elder shepherd rugged

as the land admires

snow-covered peaks, takes

comfort knowing it is his land;

he has learned to live with it

hand to mouth, mother and moth.

i walk into the morning mist,

a low-hanging cloud

that scrapes the earth

like a zeppelin’s belly

scrapes treetops,

breathe deeply my damp air.

i love this dreary december

that feels like october.

am as refreshed by it

as the man on horseback

is refreshed by a calm cold

sea of stars in a desert sky.

leave me alone, each of us

says soundlessly. leave me

alone to live the life

i’ve been given. i made this

choice before i was born.

leave me. let me alone.

Mike Foldes

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These poems originally appeared in the French magazine Francopolis

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Mike Foldes is the founder and managing editor of Ragazine, an online literary magazine. He is also the author of "Sleeping Dogs, A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping," and "Sandy: Chronicles of a Superstorm," with artist Christine Devereaux." 
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