Ken Holland has had work widely published in such journals as Rattle, Atlanta Review, Pedestal Magazine, and Tar River Poetry. He was awarded first place in several competitions including New Ohio Review, Kim Addonizio judge. His book length manuscript, “Summer of the Gods”, was a semi-finalist in the 2022 Able Muse book competition as well as Word Work’s 2022 Washington Prize. He’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and lives in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York. More by visiting: kenhollandpoet.com
We are here among the people of
Madrid, the Madrilenos, white noise
of language like the day’s long heat.
The city looks askance as we wander
Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, El Retiro,
the phantasm that is the Palacio Real,
three thousand rooms for the king to lay
his head.
The prostitutes along Calle Montera are
all dressed in a sheen of black, poised
in a line respectful enough for school, for
prayer, for one more meal. Their silence
like that of the beggars who barely beg, who
shift now and then to follow the shade.
Settling once more within themselves.
From the walls of the Prado death
looks down at the tourists, content with
grief, tallying the future. The severing
of Goliath’s head rendered by multiple
masters, and no miracle could have created
a well of blood deep enough to satisfy
Christ’s endless crucifixion in oil.
Madrid is like a mother who has
borne too many children, who is
as careless of the ones who clutch
at her skirt as the ones who run and
scheme their siblings’ betrayal. We
are mesmerized by the revelry that is
neither love nor chaos.
The hours of light extend deep into
the day, complicit with each street’s
illumination as we fail time and again
to name the moment when night has
risen, knowing it only from the other
side when one of us calls out the stars.
From the rooftop of our hotel we hold
forth glasses of Rioja, mouth the poor
pool of words we’ve come to learn, the
obscurity in which we move resonant
with a city we can barely touch, a city
oblivious to the way it touches us back.
The Marketplace of Ruins
The Agora of Athens, ruins upon ruins,
and places where even the remnants
have gone missing, merely a sign
on which is inscribed the image
of what once stood there. Such sleight of hand.
And I, being of an age that has reached its own ruin,
close my eyes. Then wave my arms.
Perhaps some day, not too far away, someone will see me.
Poetry in this post: © Ken Holland
Published with the permission of Ken Holland