Three poems--"Naysayers," "Based on a True Story," and "After a Storm"--make their appearance in the November 2013 issue of Poem,number 110. The journal has been continuously published since 1967. | BASED ON A TRUE STORY Year after year the same complexities plagued him. Riddles were everywhere, even in his answers, which he almost believed. He was not immortal, as he’d earlier wished to be. His attention waned. Birds built nests in the gutters, chirped with abandon and frivolity. Days simply occurred. The dialogue he had he could never be sure meant as much to the other as it did to him. That to which he pledged allegiance was often erased by the powers that be. Each morning the newspaper came, though God had never blessed it, though it spoke of the failures a town tries to hide. Every day was like an elegy, much too long and with pointless mourning. Some of his prayers he knew were contrived, though even these were ennobling and fierce. His wife, in the fall, planted mums near the road, an apology to summer for the snows on the way. Cars honked. A squirrel in a tree barked complaint at a cat. Something like drama descended on all. Serendipity he loved most of all, told no one, and wept. In the end, there were so many fictions. |
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Jeff Hardin is professor of English at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, TN. He is the author of six collections of poetry, including Fall Sanctuary (Nicholas Roerich Prize, 2004), Notes for a Praise Book (Jacar Press, 2013), Restoring the Narrative (Donald Justice Poetry Prize, 2015), Small Revolution, No Other Kind of World (X. J. Kennedy Prize, 2017), and A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being.Categories
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