TOM PESCATORE - POEMS

Tom Pescatore can sometimes be seen wandering along the Walt Whitman bridge or down the sidewalks of Philadelphia's old Skid Row. He might have left a poem or two behind to mark his trail. He claims ownership of a poetry blog: amagicalmistake.blogspot.com. His first poetry collection Go On Breathe Freely! is out now from Chatter House Press.

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Rain will remake you
​

​Rain that remakes your window shield
            layered low hang the clouds
hint of blue on gray sky
            fog that leaks from fence of trees
muted copse of wood
            arrow drives the road north
 
                                                ~Milan, Michigan 6/23/17
 

 

Night Drive
​

Half asleep—body--
exhausted—loop thru
Michigan down thru Wisconsin
is hell—now Dover, Minnesota
early morning move cars against
backdrop of cloudy yet bluing sky
—in restrooms we check for ticks
side of road in gold light in hazy
morning remove them
along with barbs of past
latched to stationary clothes
unmarked shoes—hungry stomachs
dusty yellow futures
                                    floating
                        fleeting
car ignition light--
                                    wheels—at La Crosse
            the Mississippi
                                    south of the northern terminus
an ocean flowing vertical—curling
—lusty
            lasting
                        endless
flowing--
 
                                                ~Dover, MN 7/24/17

​

​Eastern Missive
 

Crouch above Travertine Spring
            naked in the cool sierra breeze
spread my past along the plains
where I have been
            what way is done? all my life
green hills sink into foreground
night hills return spun by hand
                        gods of road--
carry me home some thousand miles more
tho I don’t want to go—I’m not ready
—still you wink you Kansas stars
written by flashlight
over the map
            Oakley Salina Manhattan
Junction City
            straight line you stretch
America     back to streets
—I know
but forgive me
places memories lives
            familiarity
back the brake—the engine cold
            ignition every morning
same old
            without a key
 
                                                ~Oakley, KS 6/30/17

​

​Looking back
 

​Today—the sun rose over old bones--
tired bones—the graveyard of brown mud
—green grass—concrete blocks cut end to
end—in the morning I rose from my bed--
my own sunken bed—having traveled
7000 miles to get back home
—tomorrow
I’ll be somewhere familiar—the morning
will come—coffee—breakfast--
my cat will whine to be let outside—my
wife will rise wiping the sleep from her
eyes—the day will drift like a river
into yesterday--
                        tomorrow—I’ll be dreaming
of that road—and the west—and the next leap
—the next drive
 
                                                ~Arlington, VA 7/2/17

 

​once there was a turtle pond empty to the eye
 

​once there was a turtle pond
empty to the eye
at the center of its green muck
a glowing pupil
a spotlight buried in its depth
from it illuminated at the surface
was the coming into focus
swimming body of a small turtle
a turtle! a turtle alone in this big pond!
swimming on spiked little toes!
a turtle! I said a Turtle I painted its life
and springing from that turtle
and its birth in my mind
another turtle spawned
now the pond slowly took focus
there were countless turtles swimming
I tried to retain the original turtle in my sight
the first turtle of creation
lost
having become the swarm
along the banks literal piles of turtle
roosting shell to shell in the night
on their turtle wall
in their turtle pond
I had glimpsed the long life of their home
from one turtle came the many
multitude billions
from this turtle pond I had glimpsed the history
of all the turtles of the earth