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Expecting Delays
As the title poem suggests, delays arrive exclusively on a personal level. (Not that some collective surface hasn’t been scratched; it has, but that surface is relatively inconsequential.) We must follow such scars; it’s who we are. This volume begins and ends just beyond the delays, far enough outside our souls to allow us to discover new ways to return. As these poems insist, the return is crucial. Bishop describes a few of his own reappearances, hopeful that the unusable track he leaves behind might remind readers of a few of their own delays and how their own expectations have been transfigured. Hidden among the ordinary images, Bishop carefully places a pair of eyes that, if engaged, assure readers a most unusual journey.
74 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 8, 2013
5 people want to read
About the author
George Bishop
30 booksLibrarian Note:
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There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 14, 2018
We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:
SUNDAY
Bad day for buzzards.
I can tell by the way they sit
in separate trees, on different billboards,
breathing the death-empty air.
Not concerned with any other kind
of peace, black with patience, they know
the sky is the wrong place to expect
to be heard. For now, they circle inside
themselves, used to the half-prayer, half-
answer world—resting in the mathematics
of this life and the next.
RENEWING SOMETHING
The man with one leg is taking his evening walk, passing
the pawn shop where several normally lit letters are dark,
reminding me of the gold-chain watch I secretly sold there—
a gift to my ex-wife from her grandmother many years ago.
Even regret wouldn’t touch that one, forgiveness far away
as gold from a dead prospector. That secret never stood
a chance even though tide after tide of alcohol assured me
my tracks were covered. I went to sea in myself after that,
most days drifting on a raft of better moments, sky-stunned.
You’d think it would always be night in me, but daylight
knows how good I am at shadows, how good they are at me.
The man with one leg is gone, now, his cold metal crutches
having taken me back to the beer I used to hide in the snow.
The pawn shop’s about to close—a part of me still standing
at the counter signing something, asking for more time,
promising to be back, one foot in front of the other.
SUNDAY
Bad day for buzzards.
I can tell by the way they sit
in separate trees, on different billboards,
breathing the death-empty air.
Not concerned with any other kind
of peace, black with patience, they know
the sky is the wrong place to expect
to be heard. For now, they circle inside
themselves, used to the half-prayer, half-
answer world—resting in the mathematics
of this life and the next.
RENEWING SOMETHING
The man with one leg is taking his evening walk, passing
the pawn shop where several normally lit letters are dark,
reminding me of the gold-chain watch I secretly sold there—
a gift to my ex-wife from her grandmother many years ago.
Even regret wouldn’t touch that one, forgiveness far away
as gold from a dead prospector. That secret never stood
a chance even though tide after tide of alcohol assured me
my tracks were covered. I went to sea in myself after that,
most days drifting on a raft of better moments, sky-stunned.
You’d think it would always be night in me, but daylight
knows how good I am at shadows, how good they are at me.
The man with one leg is gone, now, his cold metal crutches
having taken me back to the beer I used to hide in the snow.
The pawn shop’s about to close—a part of me still standing
at the counter signing something, asking for more time,
promising to be back, one foot in front of the other.
Displaying 1 of 1 review