JOHN PHILLIPS ~

Gratitude

for Fadhila Chabbi

Wherever I walked dust covered my tracks

Whatever I made fell to a thousand pieces

Whatever I said was lost in the wind

Whoever I loved loved nothing in the end

Whoever I created vanished the same

~

What is happening

when this is happening

is what this

happens to be.

~

A Way

Your absence is

the silence

to say this

toward your not

being here.

~

As

meaningless

the sun

means

us

~

Afterwards

Every time I sit down

to write this

I expect someone else

to rise from my chair,

in a different world,

impossibly better.

~

No matter

what it is

I'm doing

I've never yet

got over the

idea

I'm pretending

to do what

I am.

~

This

Whatever else it is a poem

is often nothing

more than thinking

there's something there to be

found when there's

nothing but thinking so.

~

Reading

Remember

these words

know more

than you

you came here

for a purpose

no word

could give.

——————————————

JOHN PHILLIPS

Shape of Faith

Shearman Books 2017