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Poetic Distance                                                                                                                                                   

beneath the concrete foundations,
and the brittle surface of our lives
are veins that carry that which
powers our culture
and its residue of waste.

beneath the vessels that sustain us,
be they full of wine or song
is the very substance, the littered ground,
upon which we had hoped to build
the very dreams which slay us,
though we find them full
of hot air and steamy breath
from the twentieth century and beyond.

love and hate seep up
through the asphalt flesh of our lovers,
whose promise, now decaying,
is preserved as best we know how
somewhere in a wax museum
or an old northeastern cultural graveyard
where we all become caretakers
of each other’s broken hearts
by sustaining poetic distance,
knowing that if we touch each other
we will die.

~Richard Summers

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The air is dense with moisture;
an ancient wicker rocking chair
long broken and now unused
waits proudly on the ocean’s shore
where a man watches daily
as the sun rises, and sets.
He hollers at the seagulls
chasing them up and down the beach
often stopping to converse
with a stranded jellyfish
or gaze silently at the water’s edge
as if at some infinity.
A chill breeze warns of coming weather.

~Richard Summers

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For Frankie Burnham Nearis

One toy broken airplane
went sailing from your hand,
off the porch, beyond the hedge
where it was left to stand,
reflection of the knowlege
lost in wingless man;
its elastic motor snapped,
its propeller slightly wrapped
around the rock it rusts on
in the rain.

~Richard Summers

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As the sea crashes on the shore
the rocks along the beach will stand
as monuments, though time erodes
and moments slip increasingly
through our fingers, beyond our grasp
becoming memories, now bittersweet;
the backyard with its croquet set
the flower beds where roses slept
with rhubarb, crocus and lilies there
clustered about the iris where
Obadiah, Kelly and I
with our bottle of cheap wine
stood beside a juniper
until the end of time.

~Richard Summers

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Not so very long ago
or was it perhaps a lifetime
you cast your shadowy image
vainly, if not a bit insanely
across one sunlit portion of the sky
like blue notes on a saxophone
where the memory
of what was going on
became clear, but only
in your mind’s eye now
seeing, not understanding

~Richard Summers

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To The(e)

Dearest moment in my life
I have never really
come away from you;
still, in the back of my mind,
and deep within my heart,
I hold the warmth of your memory,
which is forever shaping
any maddened passion’s gasp
that followed you down
into the darkness of my soul
where shines a saving light
in the sight of you.

~Richard Summers

 

Mission Statement

“I call these sketches Shadowgraphs, partly by the designation to remind you at once that they derive from the darker side of life, partly because like other shadowgraphs they are not directly visible. When I take a shadowgraph in my hand, it makes no impression upon me, and gives me no clear conception of itself. Only when I hold it up opposite the wall, and now look not directly at it, but at that which appears on the wall, am I able to see it.”

~Soren Kierkegaard