By Kevin Coffield
Empty Boxes
Words, tempered by time,
stated and restated
like cheap wine gone bad,
corner me,
push me into spaces
where evasion is impossible,
conversation is futile,
reminding me that the beginning and the end
are really the same.
Ideas formulated and expressed
mean no more today
than they did yesterday,
or the day before.
Haunted voices in the wind caution me,
reminding me that it is not my place,
it is not my place.
So silently I speak to myself,
telling myself the tales that need telling,
my port in this storm.
And I wind up pushing empty boxes across an empty floor.
Looking Out at the Sea
A long time ago in a faraway land,
where winter’s blustery cold was just setting in,
I sat on a park bench looking out at the sea,
wondering how in the hell I’d ever come to this.
I sat staring off into the mottled darkness,
where the light of night was star bright reflected on crashing surf.
I’d been groomed for success, or so they told me.
I’d been groomed for the top of the workaday food chain.
I’d been groomed, I’d been groomed,
those words fell all around me,
like weights around my neck they seemed to drag me down,
as I sat on my park bench looking out at the sea.
Invisible as I was, the winter winds whipped right through me,
as I turned looking back in the direction of my car,
my hotel, my bedding, my clothing in the trunk,
all prearranged for a half night of sleep before moving again.
“And the interview tomorrow holds possibility,” I thought to myself,
“all positive thoughts,” I said silently,
while I buttoned my coat and turned up the collar,
as I sat on my park bench looking out at the sea.
About Kevin Coffield:
Coffield is a writer located in Petersburg, Tennessee. His poetry has been influenced by the Beat Generation writers, as well as classic writers such as T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and a litany of others, where he searches for and finds meaning in their words and works. When not writing, he can be found out in the surrounding countryside photographing the local landscape and those things that catch his eye.
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