Issue 6: Robert Lietz

by Paula Lietz

Toward Platinum

     Were     these ponds     or     only windows

full of mallards     -- and    

     the reports tonight     -- only     market terrors

or     gerrymandered     districts --

     only     airborne     or     rooftop     photographs    

from warzones     -- with     thousands

     of miles between     -- panes     soaped indoors    

to spare the costs     of window treatments --

     and     only     these     ponds     and     windows

say     -- left     to     the set

     of     years to come     -- and     cracked     glass --

paddlings     and     wingings     / alpenglow --

     Ohio     and     Israel     this     tenth     spring    

Elizabeth     -- images    the day    

     deals raw     -- with     a daughter     at     risk   
who knows?     -- a     daughter    

     absorbed     in     celebrations     / birthdays --

and     these     Harptones     / Bonnevilles --

     these     Edsels     / Stereos     -- Youngstown    

and     Steubenville     doowops. 

     We're wishing you    -- blessed     and     well --

wise     wishing     into     seasons --

     wishing     two hearts     the very     best     of

the sweet chances     -- in     this    

     deep pause     blessed     -- with     the ducks

gone now     -- and     leaves

     reflecting     on     still water     -- blessed --

heart     by     heart     -- toward    

     one    shared     table     breakfasting.  No wonder   

then     -- how     homes    

     exist     approximately     -- and     lyrics    

and     land     and     lives     -- beneath    

     this     blue     I     swear     the Great Blue's

made a home in     -- and    

     richly     blessed     -- turning     a word    

toward     platinum     / toward   

     waterfalls      / toward     ibex     -- as    

another     morning     concentrates    

     / incorporates     attention     -- and    

all     we could     make   

     by     physicists      -- make     of  

these     words      erupting    

     from     middle     eastern

          popfests.

Robert Lietz has over 700 poems in more than one hundred journals in the U.S. and Canada, in Sweden and U.K, including Agni Review, Antioch Review, Carolina Quarterly, Epoch, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah. Seven collections of poems have been published, including Running in Place (L’Epervier Press,). At Park and East Division ( L’Epervier Press,) The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press,) The Inheritance (Sandhills Press,) and Storm Service (Basfal Books). Basfal also published After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems.

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