Gary Corbi – A History and English major in college. I was always particularly interested in the cultures of peoples bordering on the Mediterranean Sea (Greece, Rome, Israel, etc.) I am experimenting with writing several types of prose poems, often centered on the people, cultures, and history of people of the Mediterranean world.
Why did you not come within our walls, my son?
When I pleaded for you to save your life.
Rather than face alone that brutal man,
who loves only war and death.
Our walls are built high and strong.
Let him wear himself out testing their strength.
Beyond even the son of a goddess.
But it is too late. For what is past, is past.
Why did you not come within our walls, my son?
I was not surprised you did not listen.
Even as a child, you led your brothers
into every childhood scrape.
Your Mother in a panic
Ran through the palace, to find you laughing.
As your Nurse patched every bruise on your face.
But it is too late. For what is past, is past.
Why did you not come within our walls, my son?
Before he tore you from us with his hate.
Even in death, I saw Apollo’s hand.
Preserving all that he could.
Your face somehow looked untouched.
Even as he dragged, you around our walls.
Behind his speeding, heedless chariot.
But it is too late. For what is past, is past.
Why did you not come within our walls, my son?
You would be in your great chair beside me.
Your son on your knee, enjoying the feast.
Instead, he sits there sadly.
His Mother watches anguished.
I see a small tremor run through her hand.
As if she has the sight Cassandra claims.
For it is too late. As what is past, is past.
Jerusalem afternoons
Sapphire blue irises
eyelashes pigment enhanced.
A slight sag below each eye
A moist concealer would mask.
Sunlight shivers the mirror
in a brief blinding furor.
She takes two steps sideways.
Hums a tune in plaintive tones.
Easing by drapes aged brocades
she flings a window open.
Sound greets her in layered careen.
Shoppers crowded haggle blares.
A slowly sung diminished dream
drowses the surrounding air.
Smoke circles a bored shopkeeper.
Clouds surrounding a weathered peak.
He studies a worn newspaper.
Pipe in hand his head repeats
a resigned shake of boredom
his chin a stubbled pendulum.
A breeze lifts spice scent laced with sweat.
Flecks of color crest the crowd
streaming in an endless press
to coat the street in a hued shroud.
She longs to leave her life’s slow crawl.
To hear her footsteps vibrate
on lonely streets beyond time’s thrall
where chanted prayers reverberate.
A floorboard creaks with a sigh.
A face of hazy features
appears and slowly clarifies
in the mirror. He moves to her.
Twirls her away from the window.
She can vanish tomorrow.
Poetry in this post: © Gary Corbi
Published with the permission of Gary Corbi