Clark Holtzman

 
Driving Down the Street to Our House

Nothing has changed
or everything has changed.
The oaks and the maples
are still making shade
or they are gone.
Mr. Willis inspects
a Mr. Lincoln with a fogger
or Mr. Willis is gone
and his roses are gone.
Absence tells good stories.
The blue skies are blue
yet or no longer blue.
Oh, and here you are,
if that’s still you.

Like You Cannot Swim

You know how it is:
Big Thing approaches,
then the drowning.

Big Thing coming
and you cannot swim.

There will be questions —
Big Thing,
have you come for me?

What have I done, Big Thing,
what have I not done? 

Big Thing,
I am drowning!

Big Thing,

Clark Holtzman lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  His book of poems and street songs, The Shepherd’s Calendar, was published in 2022.  His book of prose poems and lyric fictions, The Weather in Bluffton, Ind., was published in 2024 by Slender Book Press. website

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