Night has fallen
And it’s calling me
To dance in silhouette
Cast by the moon.
It follows my every step,
Tentative as they may be.
It is stalking me,
Talking me into falling back
Into her embrace. All I know,
Is I’m being followed
By a moon shadow.
She took the breath
Of an unguarded heart,
Leaving me gasping
For the air I crave.
I cannot save myself
So I sit still in silent
Contemplation,
my station Is my prison,
a decision
To inhale deeply rests
On an uncertain heart.
You start to pray for
A resuscitation to recover
From the strangulation.
Amorous asthma rules the day.
In silence, breath wheezes loudly.
(C) Walter J Wojtanik – 2023
From PONDERINGS OF AN ASTHMATIC by William Preston
I stepped in love once. I came out smelling like it for a long time. I was fine. but I couldn’t get the stink out of my head (or heart). I started to think in poems, totems of words stacked one upon the other. It became a tattoo worn obscenely, marking me for life as a hopeless romantic. I become frantic because that love lingers like it lives on my fingers. It possesses me. Falling in quicksand should feel so liberating. In fact it is even more. But you can’t get rid of the smell.
She found she couldn’t compete with love. It sounded wonderful in a neat little poem. But love poems are just words and she didn’t believe words anymore. He found it hard to express his heart and so he didn’t even try to anymore. She found she couldn’t compete with love. She just didn’t care.
I find a table in the back room,across the way a woman waits, studious and refined. Exchanged smiles and a nod, a recognition of each other's condition. Both on a mission to discover and uncover our truths. I delve into my notes, random lines and quotes of poetic potential, a vocabulary as a credential. She primps and organizes, text books and journals, pages put forth by sages of knowledge and education, her trained station. Shortly she is joined by her charge, a student of adult age, unsure and uncertain, shrouded by a curtain of doubt, out to prove detractors wrong. Treading on trepidatious feet he meets the one who will guide him, a black man wanting a better life, an understanding in undemanding tones. Grasping small bits of truth far from the youth of his days, he plays slowly with words, a struggle undertaken. He battles the language valiantly, stepping cautiously from word to word. Yearning for a chance to better himself, willing to learn what she offers. I look over again and we all smile and nod.
(C) Walter J Wojtanik - 2023
We think the thoughts we think
wondering if we really know
that of which we speak.
At the peak of our knowing
we realize that we really don't
know what we think we do,
and it's true. We flow contrary
to the facts that show,
against all knowledge.
(c) Walter J Wojtanik - 2023
Be careful when you fall in love,
It might hurt you and leave you
without a leg to stand on.
And when love is gone you stoop
to looking beyond your circumstance.
Keep your feet, be discreet and dance,
that’s the major thing.
And always go where your heart will show,
love is a many splendored fling!
(c) Walter J Wojtanik -2023
One after another, on the path walked before you. The terrain must again be traversed as if it were reserved just for you. Your pace is solid and sure and your memories are pure and your direction is true. It is up to you, it’s your due, following footsteps; following through!
THROUGH THE EYES OF A POET'S HEART 