DAVID LANDREY
Click headshot for bio
ABANDONED 6-PACK WRAPS
Abandoned 6-pack wraps
seated in the park
you are the leavings
of late lunches, lusts
lost parishioners of the
dream cathedral
America made lonely hearts
high-tech rejects,
chips off the block
of slave trade—newly dressed
programs/pogroms
gulped swallowed swelled
quelled
and passed on to
passers-by to
print on memory screens
as the billboard screams
The Year of the Bible
1983
when the trees came late
after a soft winter
in the northeast USA
bud reluctant
leaf shy
why?
Lilacs too
withheld their perennial
blessing but not you,
you cardboard zip-ripped
remnants of the vast array
of throwaway treats
strung together ring by ring
by eucharistic fling
ritual feast in
God’s country
SPRING FOR KATHY
On those days when life tastes so good
we could
roll it on our tongues
press it on our palates;
when each breath brings scent of heather
and the weather
shimmers bright and cool;
when you appear at aisle’s bend
and send
your smile to me across the gap —
ah! then the music drives soul deep
and we keep
our spirit whole.
SON ET LUMIÈRE
Natural light rarely finds the inner
reaches of our home, our space for dinner
or the deepest core of our lives our
souls
but the avenue beyond brings flashes
from passing vehicles fire police
to the accompaniment of sirens
fading fast after ringing in our
hearts
and through it all voices of passers-by
cell phone conversations, bursts of laughter, sometimes screeching anger and sharp curses
then a swift moment of silence hovers
before the din begins again in our
minds.
How has sense formed in forty-seven years
of sound and light passing through walls of our
souls
bombarding our
hearts
cascading through our
minds?
And what is left from the pageant from the
spectacle of Son et Lumière?
