AUGUST REYNOLDS - POEMS

Currently living in Blacksburg, VA. August Reynolds aims to tell and retell stories of people, hardships, society, and our ability and inability to forget. August draws inspiration from the American writing styles of the early-mid 20th century by detailing important, relatable stories and interactions through a more accessible, reserved writing style that teeters on the line of complex and over-simplified.

​The Front, The Wild

​i find it crazy
all of it
how
 
a lantern sits
empty in the
yard
 
a train goes
past
 
and the snowman’s
base is all that’s
left and even that
is now split, too,
like my want to write
about you but I didn’t
now I see.
 
i hope you are
well.
 
or did I just now?
 
oh, fuck, who knows
 
but the mountains
are beautiful here
 
a bird flew by
 
i'm sure it, too,
is still beautiful.

First published by Poetry Nation (Eber & Wein) in an anthology (2022)
 

Shank’s Hall   ​

​i only know of
two types of people
in this world:
 
the ones who turn
a simple issue into
a complex one,
 
and
 
the ones who turn
a complex issue into
a simple one.
 
one type considers themselves
too smart for the world,
 
the other too
enlightened.
 
it is a timeless class
of ideologies,
 
minds made of wicking
with heads pressed trying
to burn the others
down farther.
 
meanwhile, the grass
browns and we all choke
on our society-approved
actions
 
and the soldiers
march past under
a half-masted,
broken flag
 
following the creases
of the path
 
begging for more
 
and nothing changes.
 
it never seems to.
 
 

The Great Waste                                                                                                                                        ​

​my writing is
glorified shit
 
and
 
the days have
turned sour
 
days spent in
the system
surrounded by those
who don’t care
 
and
 
most of our
stock is placed
in something that
is not here,
 
not ours,
 
not understood.
 
reaching to the
sky in search of
answers that won’t
ever come
 
pissing away what
we can control,
 
what we do know
and have,
 
all we are
 
for value and reward
in our supposed next life;
 
using the sky to
justify our hate
and lack of action and
responsibility for all
we've done, and haven’t.
 
we waste our time
 
all our time
 
pissing on the dead
on the unfortunate
 
so many had theirs
cut short, yet we
continue.
 
yet we never learn...
 
we are at one another’s
throats over the smallest
of things; over nothing.
 
it's not that hard to get,
right?
 
aren’t we here to live?
 
aren't we here to live?