After Hours

Howard Altmann

We were searching for

ourselves, after logic

for no good reason,

jumping fires to take

the heat for walking,

wishing the blue night

not to fall into the blue

sky and darken what

remained. We were

holding on to music,

playing the solemn

string the healing horn,

rolling back the meadow

to give innocence one

more tumble, waiting

for the breeze to send

the screen door slamming

open. We were rushing

with the sea of people

tiding over curb and

sidewalk, twilight running

out of light, a city pacing

its expansion into the sky,

block by block, new

views burying the old,

thinking not thinking

about the dead. We were

who we never thought

we’d be, at the corner

of expectation and desire,

the world kind and un-

kind, the rabbits scared

the palace in ruins,

language failing the earth

in transition, the infinite

sky divided the clouds

dispersing premonitions.

Come evening come

shade, float us to your

constellation, let the void

draw us still; the radiologist

turn off her light and go.

Paris Winter

That we can breathe and not forget
our dreams entirely. In the cold sun

the warmth of timelessness. There is
panic, rest assured, so much beauty

stirring, I want to touch all that
contains me. We know the questions

and the light shifts without a word.
In the clouds, a philosopher’s chair

rocks. In the riverbed, the buff
and lathe of stones, change glistening

past. And from the afternoon, drops
of her monthly blood drip down

the stairs, the kitchen table, all of her
unopened bills, a cold floor that timed

Howard Altmann

2015

Holding Posture

History sits on a chair
in a room without windows.
Mornings it searches for a door,
afternoons it naps.
At the stroke of midnight,
it stretches its body and sighs.
It keeps time and loses time,
knows its place and doesn’t know its place.
Sometimes it considers the chair a step,
sometimes it believes the chair is not there.
To corners it never looks the same.
Under a full moon it holds its own.
History sits on a chair
in a room above our houses.

Howard Altmann

2014

In Vino Veritas


And I gave myself to the poem.
And the poem gave to me.
And I gave myself to the sky.
And the sky gave to me.
And I gave myself to the wind.
And the wind took what I gave
and passed it to the sky.

And I gave myself to women.
And women gave to me.
And I gave myself to the wound.
And the wound gave to me.
And I gave myself to hope.
And hope took what I gave
and passed it to the wound.

And I gave myself to wine.
And wine gave to me.
And I gave myself to candlelight.
And candlelight gave to

Howard Altmann

2013

Poems

After Hours

More by this poet

Paris Winter

Holding Posture

In Vino Veritas

Poems

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After Hours

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