Friday, June 2, 2017

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