Three Poems by Trexler Chisholm: Letter to a Dead Lover, H.P.V., Twilight Aubade

Letter to a Dead Lover

I'm sitting in a park.
There is no water to drown in
There is lawn all around.

I'm sitting in a park.
I could not fall from the sky to the grass
I'm not close enough for the sun to melt my wax.

I'm sitting in a park.
With trees the color of autumn
Firmly on the ground, not hanging from any of them.

I'm sitting in a park.
Right in the middle
I'm surrounded by baby carriages, witnesses, hundreds of people.

I'm sitting in a park.
There are no coffins or guns
only pigeons fussing over crumbs.

I'm sitting in a park.
Can you see me
sitting in a park?

H.P.V.

from Y.O.U.

Our love wasn't forever but…
It's not what I'll remember.

Boston. A public fountain
David Byrne singing
This must be the place

Lights popping to the surface
Security Guard comes running
You can't stay

He knew it all
Should have played the lottery
Share the same space for a minute or two

Given the same chance
I'd keep room in my past for a moment with you…

I complain I explain
I watch them disappear like fingerprints on hoarfrost

Twilight Aubade

A summer of mouths
into which we stuffed ourselves
in rooms, rooftops and back alleys.
Love alone can make a joke of poverty.

Now when you recommend growing up
I hear
put out your fire
come to bed
and sleep.

A drum beat's in the distance
sometime around twilight,
it may be coming from the cemetery down the hill
but it's no roll of taps. No serenade.
Hear?

What awaits the poor little girl
with her brindle-dog-dreams
and the poor little boy
with his pocket full of firecrackers?

Copyright 2009, Trexler Chisholm. © 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.

Trexler Chisholm is a poet and editor and lives in Brooklyn. He has written one book of poetry titled the Possibility of Movement, has had poems published in several small Cambridge presses when he was attending university across the river, as well as Bay Currents, and ward6review. He is currently working on a novel that concerns bus rides, a callipygian Gypsy, gondolier sex, marauding bookplates, and the bloodletting aspects of misbegotten paternity. He can be reached at cjoychisholm@gmail.com.