The Poetry of Gary Charles Wilkens

Welcome

 

 

Everybody wants to be able to paraphrase the content of the poem, except the poet.                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                             ~ Charles Simic

 

FEATURED POEM

 

                                                                                     

The Last Love I Will Feel for You

 

for L.A.

 

How preposterously poetic, writing

a poem to an elementary to junior high

crush who once said– wait for it, wait

for it... “Oscar and I have been friends

for years”.

 

Years when love showed

up like a crime scene cleaner,

setting down his bags amid

the red waste. Carefully he works,

and the dead will never know

and their loved ones will never

know how intimate

he was with the body,

or its notion.

 

Here’s something I never want you to know:

Twenty years later I returned to the tree

where I carved my O and your L,

and touched it, honoring

my love and putting it to rest.

The letters are gone but the tree

is doing well, thick

and living by a happy stream.

 

Here’s something I want you to know:

I have seen your picture, you married

with kids, which I am grateful

for, and not particularly pretty anymore,

which I am even more grateful for.

 

You are no longer the girl

with the short black hair

and I am no longer Oscar.

 

 

© Gary Charles Wilkens 2010

© 2005-2011 Gary Charles Wilkens                                                                                       last update 9/12/2010

NOTE: This page is best viewed with IE 8, using Windows Vista or Windows 7