What Jacques Knew Long in tooth and tempest, Grasping astern Huddled in filmy limbo, Wizening the hours, Consuming oaken melancholy. Scurvied life, A knot in spongy knee, A splinter homing With insidious purpose, Toward futile purchase. Wood and clay Long eroded Backbone rudderless Weightless now Left thin, Weakness transparent. Yet, even from that dark corner, Against desiccation charted Through choking salinity, The hemorrhaging of everything, Stirs before ebbing ultimate, A final sloughing of sapped peel, A blossom of ossified pulp Upon a bowing figurehead. Deaf to sirens' call, Oblivious to yaw, Sans horizon's eyes. But, perhaps, sight is more Than what Jacques knew. Up from orlop's shelf, A crawling back to an age Above the boards, Bearing back to Arden. One last reach Toward cannon's mouth, A requiem of sighs, A casting sunward To preservation's end.
Skipping Stones Skipping stones, a heart in flight. Concentric vanguards, day's delight. Etched rings in blue, unbroken, 'til unmade by weight unspoken. So, reach arms, and spirals hold! Gather love's breath in nets of gold. Line corded whole from Fractal form.
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Photography Credit: Jason Rice
Philip Lisi lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he teaches English at his alma mater by day and writes poetry and flash fiction by night alongside his family and the ghost of their cantankerous Wichienmaat cat, Sela.
