Two Poems by John L. Stanizzi: Dream People, Morning

Two Poems

by John L. Stanizzi

Dream People
(Appearing in High Tide—Ebb Tide)

They’ve emerged on wings up from the landscape,
these dazzling, shiny noisemakers,
like the souls of the faithful departed
come to the heat of paradise,
come to call out in the warmth of paradise,
to chant that what must be done takes time,
a very, long time.

And there are some that paint themselves in the colors
of those sounds which are, in the end, their dreams,
the colors that make them dreamers,
theirs for the taking from the storied hills.
And the dreamers are smiling wildly, no doubt,
as they blast across the countryside in a blur,
wizards shazamming the landscape with cartoon possibilities
born of the borrowed colors found in dreams.

Morning
(Appearing in High Tide—Ebb Tide)

Asleep with thunder asleep with lightning asleep with the wet blanket of rain
Lightning flash the color of the day in dreams

Morning with its slow breathing its bright tunnel of reminiscences
and surprise the ghost of dreams silently opening the door

Is it cooler in the shadow under the leaf
in the water stains left in the wood by the storm

Twenty sparrows like one sparrow
are there tracks in the sky where the birds have flown

Silver spotted skippers dance in the close air around the butterfly bush
touch down on purple blossoms and quietly applaud

Questions asked near the shadow of the fence
its reflection in the pond vanishing and reappearing over and over

The day moving forward, slow and enormous
and exactly like this just this once

Morning with its wrinkled sheets stiffness in the body,
and the bones of the absolute in a heap by the door

John L. Stanizzi is the author of the Chapbook, Windows. His full length collections are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall (www.antrimhousebooks.com), and After the Bell, (www.bigtablepublishing.com). His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The New York Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Passages North, The Spoon River Quarterly, Poet Lore, The Connecticut River Review, Freshwater, and many other publications. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, in 1998 Stanizzi was named The New England Poet of the Year by The New England Association of Teachers of English. John has been a judge for the Connecticut Poetry Out Loud Program, the 2011 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry, and the Sunken Garden Poetry Award for Adult Writers. He is the coordinator for Hill-Stead Museum’s Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for high school poets. He taught for many years at Bacon Academy where he also directed the theater program. He has read at many venues throughout Connecticut, including The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, RJ Julia Booksellers, and the Arts Café Mystic. His newest collection, Hallelujah Time!, poems based on the music of Bob Marley, will be out next year. He is currently an adjunct professor at Manchester Community College. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, Connecticut.

Copyright 2015, © John L. Stanizzi. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.