PSH: Poets of the Week

Richard Lighthouse
RL1@ausi.com

Bio (auto)

Richard Lighthouse is a contemporary writer and poet. He holds an M.S. from Stanford University. His work has been published in: The Penwood Review, West Hills Review, Mudfish, and many others worldwide. He lives in Pasadena, Texas.

catching fire

strike these poems together like
two flints. sparks will erupt.

hunt and gather small verbs of
debris, for it will catch first.
think like a caveman.
feel the cold and hunger.

pile word twigs together on top.
carry the stick weight of vowels
as they yearn for life.
ugh. ooh. aah.

dowel upon wood, turn the syllables
until they mean something. force
them to mean something. do
not relent.

with sacred delicate breath, blow.
again. blow.
the pulse from your chest, brings
life to meaning.

see how it combusts without
more effort. it knows what to do.

feel the heat rising from words.
let it puncture the cold.
then gather more language
to feed it.

now, rest easy as
you sleep this night.
in the embers, there are meanings.
in the burning, we are known.

daylight saving

within each brain clock
we shift with the sun,
tide with the moon,
and hang at evening's edge.

cheating the ticking gods
of things miss understood.
sacred in our cycle.
blessed rhythm of sequence.

and when we leap forward
stealing minutes
of convenience, does the moon
wince in despair?

begging - how much can we
borrow and still give back?
even the owl wants
to know.

tequila shakes

mix 2 parts anxiety
1 heap ice cream
4 ounces tequila.
shake vigorously. (the drink,
not yourself.)

repeat until
you
shake
vigorously.

new man

greeting me, i say
i am not the man
from memory,
stolen and silenced.

i am your newest
creation of me, an
aspect un known.
until this now.

hello.

though it feels familiar
this kiss is brand new.
not leftover to tide
old amnesia.
i have come to absolve
myself of the man
you remember.

when we kiss tomorrow
that will be fresh
as well. remember?

S. Thomas Summers
scottsummers1@hotmail.com

Bio (auto)

S. Thomas Summers teaches English at Wayne Hills High School in Wayne, NJ. He is the author of two chapbooks: Rather, It Should Shine (Pudding House Press, 2007) and Death Settled Well (Shadows Ink Publications, 2006). Summers's poetry has been published in the Loch Raven Review, Umbrella, The English Journal, Stirring, 3rd Muse, and other print and electronic reviews. He encourages all to visit his web site and blog at www.freewebs.com/sthomassummers. Summers lives in Vernon, NJ with his wife and children.

A Pleasant Day’s End

Of course, a coffee mug
mounted on the end table
like a barrel: quarter full,
its oil has cooled. The plate
next to it – garnished with cookie crumbs.
You on the couch reading Kierkegaard,
contemplating the nature of despair.

I’ll fold my thoughts into the wind,
ask them to scurry over the oak’s
splay of limbs like mice that scuttle
over our basement’s pipes and valves.
When the house blossoms with quiet,
I’ll hear pink feet tap against copper,
and try to decipher the collective's
philosophy of shadow, excise
each whiskered self from the horde.

Ladies

I’ve been told to wash behind
my ears, sip hot soup, finish
my homework, run from ladies
who huddle in high heels under

street signs and lamp posts –
but I’ve watch them suck
cigarettes, inhale deep, as if bliss
laces tobacco’s dim sugar

and seraphim mingle in smoke -
smolder that filters through earrings
tainting perfume’s sweet tang. Brilliant
skirts, billiard ball colors, tight as black

stretched against night, let slip Edens
of ass. The tears these ladies bleed
glisten like glitter against slabs
of blush – so beautiful and dear.

We Have a Minute, More or Less

but now our time together has already
been slashed to fifty-five seconds
and I so want to tell you about the Doritos bag

leashed to the wake of an old olive Cutlass.
It fluttered over the roadside hedge like a blue,
red butterfly. Forty seconds left, so I’ll cut

to the chase – a blonde boy walking his dog
must have seen that butterfly too. For a moment
his eyes swelled larger than the saliva soaked

tennis ball he carried in his hand – a hand
just beginning to shed the round softness
of innocence. Twenty seconds now and I swear

that boy stuck his head through the hedge – probably
hoping to watch the bag dance with its brothers
and sisters above an Eden of wildflowers.