Nexus What has passed shapes the part that remains: The sweep hand holds its breath, then clicks, and the clock breathes again. At day’s end, the sun swells, then drops from its ledge waking fields of gems in the darkness overhead. And dreams return to bed to reprise the searching voices inside us— that elusive yet intimate presence which prickles our skin or sates it. Then morning comes—light ascends and floods, breaking the edges of windows and doors. There is rust in our tracks from the day before. Each second holds the nub of the next: From spirit-sparked dust and cellular mix life pulses through time, just to lose its grip on the moment— before starting anew.
The Shore of Imagination --Inspired by Richard What’s imagined is true— for as long as it lasts; it confers with facts as needed. Even when crayons master trees, clouds can still be green. And the sun can be blue— seas empty, or full— or the sky still blank or the beach too red for feet. Facts serve to settle uncertain beliefs, but the mind’s eye knows what it sees.
Looking Through the Big End of the Telescope In the mind, the frames of time are inversely sized: Years are captured in snapshots and windows. Entire summers hang on nimbus clouds and clothesline rows. Days and weeks are fields of clover, countless needles in a forest of pine. While the present is a blur of collapsing moments, the endless shaft of a shrinking mine.
My home on the web is www.johnmiddlebrookpoet.com, and here, you can find the details of my publication history. I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I manage a consulting firm focused on non-profit organizations. I have been writing poetry since I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where I also served on the poetry staff of Chicago Review.