A poem about loneliness by David Tombale: Sitting in the park

I wrote this piece based on a scene that transpired in my life when I was in-between relationships. I'd gotten out of one and was months from my next and experiencing a little envy and anger at the fact that the world continued on without me, completely indifferent to my suffering.
Sitting in the park

I had good days and bad days
While learning to be young,
Learning how to whistle like
The other boys (I never did)
Learning how to talk to girls
(I think I had more fun throwing
Rocks at them)

Don’t blame me.
I was young.

Too young to understand that
I’d regret those taunts someday,
Too young to see the pleasure
Spent in a young girl’s company
And now I’m older, sitting crosswise
On a bench watching all the little
Couples wishing a meteor would
Come to crush me and them.

I am lonely. I have these numbers
In my phone but no one to call so
I sit here pretending that I can hear
All their conversations,
The “I love you’s” and “I’ve missed
You’s” as if I’m taking part, as if
Somehow I am a part of them but
Slowly it gets darker and the couples
Begin to leave and then it’s just me
Sitting lonely, a quiet stranger
Sitting in the park.

A poem about memory and love by David Tombale: Summer love

Summer love is about the love a boy once shared with a girl amidst the sweltering summer heat. It's a story that is at parts fact and fiction and hopefully captures both the passion between these two people and how even when it passes it still leaves something beautiful behind.
Summer love

Once our Summer loved us,
often beckoning from the shelter
of the trees

Always wise and welcoming her little kids
when we’d laugh and skip along two hands
together as if all of us would never leave
the shade of emerald canopies

White lightning sparking silence as you
ran your tongue along my slickness and
I lost myself in touch and kiss and
warmth of us,

Summer loved us and sometimes
she lifts her sun tanned hands to wave at
me and tells me how she missed us-

loved the way I loved you,
the way gravity bounced us around each other
like the universe expanded in our hearts until
looking at you became a past time that made you blush
as the sparrows watched through slits of shutters
we kept closed in the hurried patter of summer rain
while the thunder played a melody
from the heights of distant cliffs. 

A poem about memory by David Tombale: When I am lost

When I am lost describes a connection I felt and still feel for my old high school. There is something about that school that will follow me for the rest of my days and I think that's true for everyone in regards to at least one place they've been in their lives. That these places always serve as shrines to memories we cherish.
When I am lost

There were too many calls to make,
Too many places to be when I could
Have gone anywhere but there’s this
Place where I lay my head and it feels
Right.

This one place where I come often,
Not really to sleep but to be renewed
As if I want to be reborn again in a
Bid to become better in my second life.

This place I come has all the look of
A school but it’s really my home.

I left my heart amongst the chalkboards
And battered desks, loaned out my love
Hoping someday I might get it back but
It was not to be.

I came back here when I turned twenty-one
Only to realize that there was no place to return
To.

It should look the same but it isn’t.
Something is missing here so I’m parked
Outside trying to remember what I was
Trying to find but it’s getting harder to
Picture me inside its walls perhaps because
She’s missing and without her the echoes
Grow, the grounds look old and I’m just
A little boy stuck looking for himself.

A poem about working life by David Tombale: Early Monday Morning

This poem touches upon that feeling that a lot of us have after the weekend when we realize our working week is once again starting. For too many of us there is discontent and disappointment that we aside in order to do our jobs and that is what this piece is about.
Early Monday Morning

I work for pennies sometimes and
Sometimes I don’t work at all

The quiet drudgery of making small
Ends meet is chipping pieces off me
And sometimes I cannot wake at all

But my alarm clock seems to ring while
I’m huddled in my sheets,

That ring, ring,
That incessant noise that grips my
Heart so tightly that my blood congeals
And hardens until I am undone and
Stirring, crawling from my slumber with
All the grace of a broken marionette,

Now the tv’s static turns to pictures of
Stars and cars, hotel rooms and expensive
Dreams that I drink from the bottom of
My cup as I fit into my polished shoes and
Turn off all these happy lights. 

A poem about death by David Tombale: A song for lover's end

A song for lover's end addresses a topic I've struggled to write a few times. Death has always fascinated me and I've tried to look at it through as many eyes as possible. I think this is as close as I've come far thus far to capturing a little of that pain.
A song for lover's end

The daisies smell so beautiful
In the daytime

I pick a few and
Place them in your hair

You look so peaceful, almost
Sleeping

I dare not wake you
To watch the sun breaking across
The sky

Egg yolk yellow and vibrant
Red like the roses you once loved

I sit beside you and sing a lullaby
That clings to me among memories
Of a gentle youth

My mother’s hand still patient
Upon my back and my father’s eyes
Still staring out at things he must
Have wished he’d make for me

A world he fought and tamed
And fashioned into home
I think of all of it while holding tightly
To your freezing hand

I think of it while I close your lids and
Kiss these lips that I shall never kiss again

And say those last three words
You’ll never hear again

I said I love you my old friend.

A poem about loss by David Tombale: The road he travels

The road he travels was my attempt at staring out at the world through the eyes of an infant. It occurred to me that there would be this innocent ignorance that would veil how a child perceives the things around him but that there would still be a lot that he'd be exposed to that he might understand in future.
The road he travels

What good is a day
last seen travelling down the
River Thames carrying on
with all the reckless joy of
a new born babe?

New formed lungs struggling with
cries of hunger and helpless rage,

His mother has not crept up to
his crib today, has not kissed
his healthy brow or felt his
toasty skin steaming beneath
a pair of Spongebob sheets,

He has not seen her nor his
father, salt and pepper beard
that tickles his little nose until
he sneezes and bubbles pop as
he lifts his head to laugh at this
stranger holding him to the light.

But there are no visits,
he’s grown too big for baby’s crib,
too wise to comprehend why this
woman he does not know croons to him
or why his father only waves to him
from a little perch there by the
window sill, his eyes as grey as
morning rain while tears drip down
to fill the puddles by his cup.

A poem about family by David Tombale: Satchmo and the garden

Satchmo and the garden grew out of this image that was in my head, sort of a portrait of a grown man and his elderly father. No matter how grown we get there is vulnerability we still possess around our parents and that's what I tried to show with this piece.
Satchmo and the garden

Lilies by my window,
I’m looking into the garden,
The dog is rubbing his hairy
Rear upon my lawn, gambolling
Around

He seems happy.
I do not cry,
I can’t remember when I did

There is music somewhere far
Behind me, sounds like Satchmo

How funny, I thought my father
Hated jazz

It’s just he and I today, I sent the
Nurse out to get the paper

My father doesn’t read these days,
His eyes have gotten bad so when
He walked into the room I had to
Stand

I took his hand in mine and showed
Him Charlie playing in the garden
And finally he smiled.