Poetry by DeWitt Clinton

                            Matt Anderson CC



The Way We Live

Some still impress us with thick portfolios.
Some notice only the waxing moon.
If we look somewhere, we’ll never see the breezes.
If we remember, we can’t count all beneath us.

The Age of Terror may never end.
Fear keeps us texting whr r u?
Is there any place we haven’t heard about?
On the Black Sea, none of us may eat.

I arrived crying, and still do.
I only laugh at the blue screen.
Every day, I hear judges,
Hope for any reduced sentence.

It’s harder to know, for sure,
Unless your boot fills my breath.
Sure, everyone is a friend
But no one speaks anymore.
Don’t be certain what you see
Don’t regret what’s been whispered.
Go ahead, scream, but don’t be scared.
Soon that’s all we’ll do.

Someday the rains will fall inside our homes.
Cold baths, day and night.
Then we’ll escape to the roof
Only to see the sea, everywhere.

The axis will not change.
The clouds evaporate into Greek stars.
On our backs, clammy, we’ll count how
Far away we are, knowing we’re not there yet.

​

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What is About to Happen Has Already Happened

Pleasant.  Yes, that sounds about right.  More pleasantness,
Please.  After all, we’d all like each other more and more
If only we expressed more pleasantries, more cake,
As who really wants to sit and listen to a misanthrope
Go on and on about what a dreadful night it was.
Let’s all hip hip hurray our way out of here with cheery
Thoughts no one might ever imagine how awful what
Is about to happen has already happened, and no one
On my block is never ever going to talk about it, as 
Just saying the word will make every one of us just
Start puking our guts out right at the curb knowing
Nobody nobody is going to bother to wipe the mess
Up or at least away so it will stay there, drawing such
Big Blow Flies we’ve ever seen with a stink that makes
All of us going by just want to wretch on top of what’s
Already there.  And the fucking Sun only makes it hard
& finite, like it’s never going to leave and then by luck
A bird so light lands and starts gobbling up all
The nutrients, all the tiny seeds, all the slivers, all of 
What came up and out, so even now, it’s starting to
Look a little brighter here, a bit sunnier, and someone
Just now took a breath, and smiled, yes, it’s very
Possible if rains should come it will all be pleasant,
Again.





How Amazing

Sometimes before the grey sets in
Before the late afternoon quietly
Eases down and the doves lament
Whatever has not yet been
It’s then that I wonder, like Mother,
How many more of these days 
Anyone keeps together as one comes
And then another and then another
And pretty soon, one can’t remember
Anything anybody’s ever done so
why does it take so long to just
Finish what we started, but most 
Of us don’t have any idea what
That was, or even anything that was,
Perhaps that’s it, we’re just here to 
Keep everything moving until one
Forgets what there is to move,
So now all we’re able to do is
So simple just count the dust that 
floats forever by us in such thin light
And it’s then we know nothing
really is quite what we say it is
even if we all say how amazing.

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Recent poems by DeWitt Clinton have appeared in Lowestoft Chronicle, The New Reader Review, The Bezine, The Poet by Day, Verse-Virtual, Poetry Hall, Muddy River Poetry Review, Across the Margin, Art + Literature Lab, One Magazine, Fudoki Magazine (England), and New Verse News. He has two poetry collections from New Rivers Press, a recent collection of poems, At the End of the War, (Kelsay Books, 2018), and another is in production from Is A Rose Press, a collection of poetic adaptations of Kenneth Rexroth’s 100 Poems from the Chinese​.

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