Mark Reimer is a former colleague of mine at UMass Lowell who now works at another college and “moonlights as a poet and a musician,” in his words. His poetry has been published in America magazine; still: a journal of short verse; Christianity and Literature; and Pontoon: An Anthology of Washington State Poets. I had to look up “girih tile,” a reference to geometric patterns used in Islamic architecture. This is Mark’s first appearance on the RichardHowe.com blog, and we look forward to more from him.—PM

ANTLERS

Some thoughts grow

like antlers from a skull.

Dark bone,

browned by cold

after the blood is gone,

they harden

and fall away

when spring returns,

only to emerge again

in winter

with the ice.

CHIAROSCURO

Looking for you

in the subtle spaces between

celtic knots,

black-glazed Umbrian

swirls and trumpets,

girih tile rosettas

and garlands of jasmine and lotos.

In the light and dark,

you are

(SMALL PLACES)

as a child

I dreamed of small places

sleeping in dresser drawers

hiding in cabinets

thinking about tunnels

I loved the story of Moses

how he hid in

a cleft in the rock

behind the hollow

of God’s hand

now

in the city

I lose myself in thought

standing on the subway platform

wondering if I would fit

into the niche

in the tunnel wall

covered by

an unseen hand

while the fury passes by

SANTA FE

Believing only in trains,

an old woman said

that loss of faith

was like a trail of smoke

that cut the rim of the sky,

dividing heaven and earth,

thick from the belching stack

but spreading thin, then gone,

into a fitful wind.

— Mark Reimer