Reflections by R.S. Thomas

On July 8, 2017July 8, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

If you aren’t familiar with R.S. Thomas, then I invite you to read some of his work. I discovered his poetry in 1997 in a 20th Century British Poetry class in college, and I was immediately hooked.

Reflections – R.S. Thomas

The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.

Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce

with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X—ray. It is a chalice

held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.

shadow

On July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I watch through the window
as we race down the runway,

and our plane’s shadow stays
coupled until the wheels

disengage. We ascend
and I see the full shadow

skim across a small lake,
fade over a field, and vanish.

I wonder if I’ll ever elude
the shadow following me.

midnight

On July 6, 2017July 6, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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elements of loss
scatter throughout
the evening sky,

yet fading stars
pervade our sight.
something shattered

now refurbished
by waves and beams
from another time,

illuminating
our dismal dark.

Struggle

On July 5, 2017July 5, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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He is stuck again
between the spaces
of past and future,
moving along invisible
lines, bound to now
until it ends. How grim
an existence if not for dark
and light places revealing
the colors of grace sparkling
like the sun upon a dancing sea.

*From Awaiting the Images

life inside

On July 3, 2017July 3, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

the machine’s howl
scorches our ears
and minds. everyone

wears the searing scar.
even the deaf weep,
for the machine screams

not across unbounded
skies, but from within.
can we stifle the roar?

can we purge the pain?
we search for anything
to make us whole,

that will not disappear
as its name forms
on our trembling lips.

stone’s throw

On July 1, 2017July 1, 2017 By AnthonyIn Creative Writing, Poetry, Uncategorized2 Comments

a boy takes refuge
in the silent woods of winter,
trading the noise inside
for the soft crackle of leaves
that mark each step to the frozen
lake below. standing above
the icy water’s edge
he spends hours lofting stones
towards the sky, waiting
and watching each one,
like words, poke a perfect hole
through the ice and softly
sink into the startled stillness.

From Awaiting the Images
stone’s throw first appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Number 42, 2015

On the Gift of a Fountain Pen – Seamus Heaney

On June 30, 2017June 30, 2017 By AnthonyIn Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

On March 4, 2013, I attended one of Seamus Heaney’s final public readings prior to his death. He was the featured poet at Baylor University’s Beall Poetry Festival, and he wrote a poem for the occasion. It hangs on the wall in the English Department’s Carroll Science Hall. Enjoy.

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