CREEK ROAD GANG
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Joe Quinton: 5 Poems
copyright 2010
erecting holidays
as the song says "each day is..."
so each is not unique but we make it so
for some reason, shame perhaps
that on ordinary days we don't
do what we are called to do
it is a celebration of sorts
if only we can forget the guilt
that stays when we remember
what we should have done
and never did and now can’t
Untitled
red explosion
five azaleas
in a row
trees
a palette
of greens
white iris
clumped
beauty
one birch
a white
spear
pearls
imitating
the rain
rain
curtain
of absences
trains
grumbling
old men
rabbits
on the ground
calligraphy
at dawn
a single cloud
pink
Mothers Day 2010
my mother married at thirty
her father had died when she
was in her teens, she and her
mother made a life for themselves
but what that life was like no
answers ever came to me,
no sharing memories,
no shreds of lives
twenty years have passed
since she is gone where
there are no memories
only puzzlements
I should have asked, said
“Mother tell me of your life
was it a pleasant glide
or loneliness and sorrow?”
but there was no talking
an inheritance passed
down to where I sit and
question her on Mothers Day
PEACHES
Now gardens show growth
Peach trees laden with fruit
Ripe, flavorful, juicy,
Warm and satisfying.
I once brushed against a peach,
Alive, sun kissed,
Bursting from her skin.
I turned, afraid to bite.
CHEESE FARE WEEK
We work to empty out -
Cheese, butter, eggs devoured,
Consumed gluttonously.
Meat was gone last week.
Now the final cupboard emptied.
This is an ordinance
But more than rule
“not by bread alone.”
We linger in hunger.
Slowing food produces grace.
Call it not deprivation
But a gift to God.
as the song says "each day is..."
so each is not unique but we make it so
for some reason, shame perhaps
that on ordinary days we don't
do what we are called to do
it is a celebration of sorts
if only we can forget the guilt
that stays when we remember
what we should have done
and never did and now can’t
Untitled
red explosion
five azaleas
in a row
trees
a palette
of greens
white iris
clumped
beauty
one birch
a white
spear
pearls
imitating
the rain
rain
curtain
of absences
trains
grumbling
old men
rabbits
on the ground
calligraphy
at dawn
a single cloud
pink
Mothers Day 2010
my mother married at thirty
her father had died when she
was in her teens, she and her
mother made a life for themselves
but what that life was like no
answers ever came to me,
no sharing memories,
no shreds of lives
twenty years have passed
since she is gone where
there are no memories
only puzzlements
I should have asked, said
“Mother tell me of your life
was it a pleasant glide
or loneliness and sorrow?”
but there was no talking
an inheritance passed
down to where I sit and
question her on Mothers Day
PEACHES
Now gardens show growth
Peach trees laden with fruit
Ripe, flavorful, juicy,
Warm and satisfying.
I once brushed against a peach,
Alive, sun kissed,
Bursting from her skin.
I turned, afraid to bite.
CHEESE FARE WEEK
We work to empty out -
Cheese, butter, eggs devoured,
Consumed gluttonously.
Meat was gone last week.
Now the final cupboard emptied.
This is an ordinance
But more than rule
“not by bread alone.”
We linger in hunger.
Slowing food produces grace.
Call it not deprivation
But a gift to God.
Biographical Note:
Joe Quinton is a recent resident of
Chester County, Pennsylvania after lives spent in Providence, Boston,
West Palm
Beach and Kingsville, Texas. He came to poetry after retiring and
seeking
some form of expression. He finds it serves as a journal of life today
and a memento of what was once. Both themes appear and reappear in his
poetry.Joe is a
regular contributor to Creek
Road Gang.
See also the Author
Index
for
Poetry and Author Index for Prose L-Z to find more of his work.
Photo by Tom Varley
