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[ 4 poems by J. R. Solonche ]
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Only
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“Why do you not sleep?” the goddess asked.
“They are only years.
Only years.”
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“I do not sleep because they’re only fears,” he answered.
“Only fears.”
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“Why do you weep and weep?” the goddess asked.
“They are only fears.
Only fears.”
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“I weep and weep because they’re only years,” he answered.
“Only years.”
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“Why do you keep and keep?” the goddess asked.
“It only disappears.
Only disappears.”
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“I keep and keep because it only appears,” he answered.
“It only appears.”
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J. R. Solonche
from Alone, David Robert Books, Cincinnati OH; © 2023
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October
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It’s a beautiful day.
It’s just about perfect.
Why just about? Why not?
Why the hell not perfect?
The temperature’s in
the sixties with an easy
breeze. Clouds, not too
many, in the blue sky.
I walk my property,
talking to myself. “These
are my trees,” I say.
“They belong to me. Every
branch, every twig,
every tree, small or big,
is mine. Every bird
that nests in my trees are
mine. Every worm that
crawls in my warm soil
is mine. Every blade of
grass that grows in my lawn
is mine. Every breeze
that blows through my trees
is mine.” Ah I would
give, I would give, I would
give all that is mine,
all this that is mine for
the girl I saw on the train
when I was seventeen.
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J. R. Solonche
from Alone, David Robert Books, Cincinnati OH; © 2023
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Thought
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I thought I had a thought.
I was wrong.
It was not a thought.
It was something else entirely.
I know a thought when I think one.
I have had many thousands of thoughts.
What I had was not a thought.
It was a feeling.
It was an inkling.
It felt like ink running down the back of my neck.
It was an itch of ink.
I scratched it until my fingers turned blue.
Then I wrote this with it.
This is not a thought.
This is a poem.
I think.
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J. R. Solonche
from Alone, David Robert Books, Cincinnati OH; © 2023
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Today We Fly Over You
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Today we fly over you,
said the geese with wings as wide as vowels
as I looked up to see them fly over me.
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Remember us or not,
said the last of the geese in line
as it disappeared from sight.
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Everyday I fly over you,
and everyday you do not notice me,
said the empty sky
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as I looked up at the empty sky
filled with ghosts of geese,
their wings like soaring smiles.
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J. R. Solonche
from Alone, David Robert Books, Cincinnati OH; © 2023
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In this collection Alone, by J. R. Solonche, the poems in Part I and Part III are indeed alone, one single poem lingering within each section, and these two lonely poems are each titled Alone. What then might I, as reader, expect from the eighty-five poems that jostle together to fill Part II, that wide open expanse of poems in between the opening poem and its brother poem at the book’s far shore? None of those eighty-five at first reading seem to tackle head on the question that opens the first line of the first poem in the first section of the book: How does a man get used / to living without a woman? Not head on, not at all, but perhaps tangentially and discretely? And when they seem to wander, is it really without aim or purpose? What in the world is their purpose?
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What is the purpose of any poem, after all? If it is written to a purpose isn’t it really an essay or a polemic, even if disguised with linebreaks? Maybe the poem finds its purpose in simply being alone. There it reclines on the page, its shape or shapelessness an undecipherable incantation by the writer of it. There the poem stutters its grammar into being, a Rosetta stone to be picked up and picked at by the reader. Namely me. I, who have chosen to sit alone with the poem for the passage of moments it takes to read it line by line. Then probably read it again because a single passage through those curls of letters like lines of foam on incoming waves is not enough to really feel the tug of undertow.
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And then at the end, after crossing the sea of the entire one+eighty-five+one poems, I arrive at the far side. Time has coalesced, an infinite sequence of points becoming finite. The words have gathered themselves and bestowed whatever my momentary mentality has been able to glean. The poems have become my past, my present, and even my future (this is getting tense). I don’t know the explicative answer to the poet’s question, How does a . . . , but I know I myself have spent alone time with these poems. We have been alone together. I have a feeling. I will write it down, my own question. Maybe sometime later when you and I are alone together, I will share it with you.
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Perhaps the answer to How . . .? is Keep writing. The sensations, observations, recollections converge to become the unifying moment. Or diverge into companionship with the cosmos. My inklings and I, we are never alone.
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Read additional poems by J. R. Solonche at Verse and Image:
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
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– Bill
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Hi Bill, Here is a poem submission for Saturday Readers Share that feels appropriate for the summer and the intense…