Kenneth Edward Hart

A New Jersey author

Alone

by

Alone

waiting together

She looked straight ahead

Peripherally

He watched her standing close

Against the candy rack

He pays his money and leaves

Wondering

what her body would have felt like

In his arms

In his bed

The image returns to him

City Collection

by

Packs gather by the candy store

on the corner

huddling like cats

Bottles scattered

catching light off the cold ground

like winter insects

A child with no coat

wiping her nose on her sleeve

with swollen hands and feet

Epiphany

by

A statue that a statue maker never finished

stood in the corner of a workshop room

and began to smile every day.

She watched the statue maker begin her

work in clay and then shape the finished stone.

at night she watched the other statues play.

Now this model had been created with a feeling

That just wouldn’t go away,

and though she never seemed to grow

something seemed to change…

It was in a burst of enthusiasm,

the sculptor brought her to the sandbox and lay

her down gently, so that she looked the other way

and she was completed so quickly that before

she had anything to say, she was done.

And some questions went away and she looked

around with certainty, she knew she’d come of age.

This statue who now stretched her arms to the side

as her hair tumbled down in a cascade,

looked straight at her maker with both eyes wide

She filled with a pride that nearly cracked through her sides

and with a look that was reflected in her gaze

The sculptor held her high and began to smile

but for a moment the smile went away.

They saw into each other’s eyes

And said, “I could love you.”

Jersey Moon

by

One night last week the real harvest moon

made a cameo appearance in the Jersey sky.

People came out to look like it was someone who had moved

and now talked about the neighborhood with a nostalgic smile.

When I was a little boy in the city of Newark,

being driven home from a day that I played to a tie,

falling asleep in the backseat,

a younger moon like a nightlight soothed my tired eyes.

It was a bigger and brighter yellow and ruled the quiet sky.

Sometimes it feels now like this autumn moon

wants to pull me up and set me to the side.

My old friend seems to be tapping out a tune

And looking at his watch with mischievous guile.

I Never Lived With My Father

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I Never Lived  With My Father

 

Today I’m wearing my father’s shoes.

Gray McGregor casuals with Velcro straps,

that were given to me when he died.

 

He stored them in shoetrees and kept neatly

in his landscaped closet.

 

I’m afraid that when I take them off, they’ll get thrown

into my pile with the stray tie

that’s slipped down in wrinkles and disuse.

 

I want to feel different in my father’s shoes.

Maybe I will osmotically become a golfer

or acquire a knowledge of how to fix jukeboxes.

I search my arm but the tattoo of his name has not appeared.

 

There should be some connection to these shoes.

I made a ceremony out of not putting them on until I was ready.

I handled the smooth leather and admired the clean soles.

 

“Dammit Dad!”

 

Nope. Nothing there.

Another gravestone that doesn’t talk back.

 

I made up a story to tell his wife about how I felt

the first time that I wore them. She looked confused

and said, “Isn’t that strange, he never got to put them on.”

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