Final Things
In the den is an empty chair. Late sun blesses a well-worn
Persian rug. Farther off through weathered pane, I stare
for hours at the Clyde, a yellowy-ochre brick factory building
reminiscent of a bygone industrial era, and gaze transfixed
at pigeons and crows that land upon its gray-bleak roof, or circle
high above the rusty, patina-covered bridge spanning the Lehigh River.
Days are long and lorn; I count the postman among my friends.
Nights are worse, pacing aimlessly, lone echo in the hallways,
unnerved by looking-glass glint, the groaning of pipe and wood,
and a cacophony of ghostly voices from the past which I cannot silence
despite innumerable shots of Jäger poured for sleep. I weep:
Anya! Anya! Mi lesz velem? and think to myself: all are gone now,
like felled leaves after autumn rains, and I am left
clanging their pots and pans, marooned in time.
(First published in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Vol. 51, Fall 2020, Philadelphia, USA)
Quarrymen
They have closed-coffin eyes,
dark and numinous,
as if bearing the mark
of an underworld,
sculptors of holy-wrecked landscapes!
Like their fathers
and their fathers before them,
off they go,
sun up,
lunch-bucket in hand.
Nearby, limestone juts
from a bank of poplar
and sycamore,
catfish prowl the murky deeps.
Days are interminably long,
nights a short reprieve,
some plum pálinka
after soup,
falling asleep to the sounds
of distant trains.
At the Laurel,
stone’s throw from the bridge,
they arrive Friday late
aching for clams and beer,
hard lads
doing time.
(First published in The Seventh Quarry, Issue 37, Winter/Spring 2023, Swansea, Wales)
The Out-of-Towners
for Philip Larkin
Morning comes,
they leave their big-toom homes
and broken lives
sipping lattés,
fixing their brims,
commuters
in clean-sleek cars
going
going
round clubhouse,
farmhouse,
alehouse –
city folk
parting the land,
chasing the deer.
(First published in Littoral Magazine, Issue 23, Autumn Equinox, September 2023, Lavenham, England)
Black Spring
When the kilns closed,
they sat like Roman ruins,
nothing’s the same,
here, in America,
small towns folding,
spiritual malaise.
Kids dying of fentanyl,
narcotized in cyberspace.
Porches – no one there;
I see ghosts in rocking chairs.
Pigeons coo in the dark and dank
near what was once
a Tru-Blu brewery.
In rainy streets,
bells ring half-muffled,
lifelong friends gathered in black.
Big rigs careen
past gated swathes of greenery
and shrinking fields
of corn.
Past the churchyard’s
chemical stream,
no sprightly bluebells
reappear,
just horrid blocks
of glass and steel,
crows pecking
the bloodied deer.
(First published in North of Oxford, January 2023, Philadelphia, USA)
Two Geese
I’d been thinking of her,
mere months after her burial,
little to do,
looking out from the gloom
of a dimly-lit room,
two specks
piercing sun-sparkled clouds
of snowy gray,
for my eyes only.
(First published in Wisconsin Review, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2023, Oshkosh, USA)
The Dreamhole
On the road to Lafarge
I crossed a stone bridge by motorcar,
saw through magic glass
eddies of feathery-pink.
Below were carved chasms
of jagged cliff and craggy outcroppings,
dangerously steep;
beyond, holiest of man-made canyons
caressing a waveless sea!
Noble kilns
towering above!
Far beneath the surface-safe
were rooms shiny and luminescent,
streams with odd-looking fish
the color tangerine,
ceilings blue-green with pearl-like strings
of shimmering light.
A network of passages:
chamber leading unto chamber,
dark corridors between,
lost in a grand hotel
time had forgotten.
Eerie sounds punctured the morgue-mute
like earthen tongues,
excavated scenes playing
upon an inner screen,
and many more things in heaven and earth…
for eyes
that see.
(First published in Pomona Valley Review, Issue 17, Summer 2023, Pomona, USA)
About the Author
T. J. Masluk has been published widely in countries such as England, Ireland, China, South Africa, Israel, Portugal, and Pakistan, to name a few. His latest work appears in The Columbia Review, Wisconsin Review, Xavier Review, New Contrast, The Galway Review, Poetry Scotland, Orbis, The Hong Kong Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. He’s from Northampton, Pennsylvania (USA), has master’s degrees from Columbia University, a Ph.D. from Sofia University, and studied creative writing at the University of Oxford. Further details: https://nyq.org/poets/poet/tj-masluk
