Paul F. Cummins

August 20, 2019

“Tossing Hair” by Paul F. CumminsPosted by

Paul F. Cummins

TOSSING HAIR

She tosses back long black hair
A conductor-like sweep of the hand
Prefacing careful considerations with this
Gesture unconsciously graceful as waves
Of the tall Kansas grass
Wafting in the summer winds;
Stirring and rearranging the gravity
In our conference rooms and seminars,
Her gesture almost cloying in its cadences
Yet changing the very currents of our thought.
When her hair began to disappear,
She adorned rainbows of scarves
Then soon allowed us to see
A new silver-gray crop of hair,
A terrible new beauty born there
And we could feel a shift
In the weight of the air.

—from Rattle #25, Summer 2006

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Paul F. Cummins: “I write poetry to find out what I really feel about the experiences I am driven to write about. I love the occasional strange places the process leads me to, but usually I am just trying to cope with the dichotomy of the preciousness of life and the relentless passing of time.”

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December 24, 2012

“Elegy” by Paul F. CumminsPosted by

Paul F. Cummins

ELEGY

Surrounded by rings of gas and desolate galaxies
bereft of sound and acknowledgement,
prisoners of the increasing rule of darkness
hurtling with accelerated speed into the eternal
void of no time and no history at all,
I feel a wistful sadness and modicum of pride
for what earth dwellers in occasional moments of grace
were able to achieve within the doom of destiny.

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012

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January 12, 2009

“Undercover” by Paul F. CumminsPosted by

Paul F. Cummins

UNDER COVER

The skies were pretty much blue those years,
Quiet streets lined with burnished maple trees,
The horizon lay where it was supposed to be
Ever so far away wherein vision disappears;
Neighborhoods welcomed carts with ice cream chimes
And fireflies designed galaxies spread above the ground
As random owls floated inquiries over cricket rounds,
And we listened spellbound while summoned to bedtime.
Lights out I listened under the covers to Jack Benny,
To the Shadow who knew evils that lurked in men,
The Lone Ranger and Tonto triumphing again and again,
To the reassuring deference of Rochester, Amos and Andy.
All was quite well ordered, quite a set of certainties—
It seemed that all was as it was ordained to be.

—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008

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