A poem about life and guilt by David Tombale: In the love of strangers

Sometimes an overwhelming urge to escape from our mistakes can come over us so this piece is all about running away.

 

 

 

In the love of strangers

A half-forgotten candy bar rests inside

my cupboard shelf next to books I swear

I never read, next to letters from absent

friends.

 

I’ve packed a bag full of winter clothes,

fur jackets and heavy boots,

I take no photos with me,

they’re too weighty, too much like carrying a shrine along,

too much like carrying my memories with me.

 

The scent of spring is in the air,

the odor of rain that might one day fall but

I won’t be waiting by my window to watch it

strike these trash strewn streets.

 

My guilt will not let me lie,

it raids my dreams and leaves its

footprints in my mouth,

it casts its shadow in my tears,

in my frown.

 

I can’t stay here,

can’t bear to rest my head when

the walls fall down,

I think I’ll take my book of letters,

my faithful compass, and climb inside this

truck on a voyage I must take,

far from seasons, far from roads,

far from the plastic sheen of my telephone.

I’m headed somewhere where the crowds

don’t know me, where the years will pick me

clean and leave me soaking in this sea of sanity,

in the hostile love of strangers.

 

 

A poem about friendship and disappointment by David Tombale: The promises we made

Life offers us lasting friendships and some that turn out to be quite brief but each in its own way shapes the way we view the world. 

The promises we made

Love is fleeting like summer rain,

like August, leaving nothing in its

wake but words that sit so wrong

with us, that humiliate the promises

we made as friends.

Love is fleeting like the flare of flame

that turns to grey, that crumbles softly

into ash.

Love is fleeting and the storms have

slain the forests, have torn out roots and

left us naked, standing amidst the corpses

of fallen oaks and this is so familiar,

so damn similar to the way we talked,

without fury or passion, without sorrow,

mere emptiness, mere formality,

the stiff way two old bucks must bow

only to pace out into the green outdoors,

neckties and suits, until all of it is just some

tale we’ll tell our kids when we can.

A poem about misery and memory by David Tombale: It's like misery

Misery is one of those common human experiences so maybe in this piece there lies something familiar and comforting.

 

 

 

It’s like misery

 

It’s like misery,

 the cold burn of past days that

 lead these thoughts astray,

 when you and I are two

 words together, two comets passing

 in the blackness of the night,

 when I won’t miss you,

 when your name doesn’t hang upon

 my lips like grapes upon the vine,

 sitting fat and black and waiting to exhale.

 

 It’s like misery,

 the way you’re leaving,

 the way you look at me like

 the inches have grown to miles,

 the miles to seas and seas to oceans.

 

 But I won’t miss you because

 the days have talked to me,

 they’ve reminded me that we

 don’t exist, we are two wanderers

 in an endless pool of majesty that

 nobody understands.

 

 

A poem about heartache and loss by David Tombale: Mourning

We all grieve in our own ways when we lose someone and there is no right or wrong to it just sorrow and perhaps a celebration of a life well lived.

 

 

 

Mourning

 

The skyline’s ringed with lights of

 white and purple exploding like fireworks

 beneath a scarlet moon.

 

 The city cries tonight,

 there is an echo of sorrow in the way

 the cars crawl, the horns blare.

 

 The skyline is a pent up breath that

 will swallow you, letting loose these gusts

 of wind, a last release of a winter breeze.

 

 Our tears fill the first signs of rain clouds,

 fill the bottomless wealth of empty dams.

 We mourn like unruly children trying to

 harass the heavens to give Him back.

 

 

A poem about nature and spirituality by David Tombale: Drive

Drive explores the connection between nature and spirituality.

 

 

 

Drive

 

I drove down this highway on a fast trek

 into the wilderness, I am searching for

 God amongst the beasts, the lions, the

 guinea fowls.

 

 I drove down this highway to watch

 the stars go down, white showers of

 starlight fall to lay a crown around a

 mountain’s head, gone yellow as autumn

 comes, as the winter threatens.

 

 I drove down this highway and ignored

 the road signs and speed limits,

 it’s my heart that tracks the needle,

 going sixty, going eighty, one twenty now

 and still headed west.

 

 I want to watch the sun set,

 I want to see these seas of fire

 burn the bushveldt,

 I want to be there when civilization ends,

 I want to drive this old jalopy into the falling

 halo of the sun.

 

 

A poem about life and suffering by David Tombale: In spite of us

In spite of us is about looking at the struggles of daily life around the world through the lens of poetry.

In spite of us

In spite of us the days drag on

and the misery slowly grows,

the footsteps on the carpet,

the artillery in the air.

In spite of us a child goes on

in his struggles all alone,

the concrete walls, the stink

of slime, the howls of feral cats.

In spite of us the jungles burn,

the streets turn black and our

people lose their souls.

In spite of us the broken doors,

the screams, in spite of all of us

inside of all us is this yearning

to be free.

A poem about longing and love by David Tombale: Jazz

There are some people who become as necessary to your wellbeing as the air in your lungs and that’s what Jazz is meant to capture.

 

 

 

Jazz

 

A need for you lingers in the way I write

 the letters of my name, up and down with

 this leaky pen like somehow I could capture

 the momentum that takes me past the cold

 environs of our past,

 like if I run enough I might one day fly past Italy

 and into France,

 but loving you is still the music I wish to play,

 kissing your lips is still like jazz to me,

 a song I play in the jukebox of my mind so often

 I don’t even want to dance but while lying here

 counting ceiling tiles and tracing the outlines

 of my ribs I realize there’re no more ricochets,

 no more loud bangs to do me in,

 lying against this window I breathe a fog of

 damp air so I can write inside the glass,

“Meet me here.’