Poetz.com: Poetry Changes People

two poems

CROSSING THE ICE

Drive the car out on the deep-frozen lake

and listen to the surface creak.

It is February and there is no sign of spring

but the snowy footprints of a small animal

already long gone for the other shore.

The sky is white and the land is white

and the water is hard and white

and the trees have buried their green heads in the snow

leaving naked black roots trembling skyward.

It is February and I have been clean exactly three days.

Boots stamp, kick thick ice chips

skittering across the smooth expanse

broomed clean by a polishing wind.

We pretend to skate and flail

and fall

and bruise.

Our laughter is siphoned straight up off the lake

to disappear behind that empty wall

where the sky used to be.

I have a bruise deep inside my chest and I wonder

if it will ever go away,

so I can laugh without pretending.

My wife knows why I am closed off like the sky

but she has chosen to ignore it.

I lay by the fire unspeaking, unthawed,

and she lets me

until she grows bored by the silence.

So now we are out on the lake.

I can see the other shore,

hours of swimming away in distant spring thaw

but not quite so far if I start walking now.

If I walk I might make it before night comes

my footprints disappearing

as light abandons the horizon.

Maybe my friends will drive around to pick me up

and I will be myself again,

shivering while the heater roars

dripping snowmelt on black vinyl car seats.

We can drink wine and talk late into the night

in front of a fire that warms us

all the way in.

It’s getting dark,

and I have a long way to go.

WHY I TAKE GOOD CARE OF MY NOKIA CELLULAR PHONE
(WITH APOLOGIES TO GARY SNYDER)

Because it glows, banishing darkness

from country roads where we walk at night while you smoke

and we feel safe in its small globe of blue light.

Because it loves the people I love

and remembers your number when my mind is too full.

Because it sings to me

chanting its cheerful song

“I’m not just another cell phone

I’m a NOKIA!”

Because it maps the movements of an unseen sun

with its digital clock

and never let’s me be late,

and if I am,

I can call.

Because it is a life line when you are gone,

to bring you back.

Because it never grows tired

giving everything until the battery meter is zero.

Because it then shuts off completely

but is not dead.

and so it illustrates perfectly principles of meditation

and resurrection

merely by plugging in and recharging.

Because it never stops looking for a signal

no matter where we are

and so it teaches me how to pray.

Because it shakes in pleasure whenever you call to talk to me.

Because it connects us

even though we are miles apart

and conveys my deepest wishes for your happiness

bouncing messages off concrete canyons

and steel towers

to nuzzle

in your soft shell ear.

It is match-maker extraordinaire,

and like all good match-makers,

when I use it to whisper to you

“I love you,”

it smiles.

Scot Lee Williams is a poet, musician and performer. He grew up in the deserts of Arizona and received his degree in Music and Creative Writing from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He moved to New York in 1997 and has featured at Bar 13, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Spoken Word Cafe. He is a regular contributing member of synonymUS, the collaborative branch of the louderARTS Project, where he plays saxophone and flute (http://www.louderarts.com/synonymus/). His work has appeared in, among other places, Miranda Station Review, and he is the editor of the magazine PARSE published by Friendlyfire Press.