"Homecoming" by Leslie Lindsay
Mervyn Seivwright | An Echoing Deduction
How many of us suffer
in the suffering around us?
I am not broken, a fireplace
blistering romp around
sulfur hell pathways cooled
by a river’s forced breeze,
bubbling. I seek dust
of a heavenly life. How is it
in winter, the magpies
pillage under the frost, under
leaves, pecking hardened soil
for sustenance? I pantomime
what it is to be. None of us
are around long enough to see
grass grow on volcanic ash.
The wind-warbling sputters
count the hisses, not gaps
if a final breath comes.
How is it when rain smolders
fog, when inflation hardens
stomachs, when lakes
of employment wither.
A government finds the voice
of people for votes—mutes
their music as if the orchestra
never played. I am
in a knuckled thirst, crinkled
veins, numbing mornings.
in the suffering around us?
I am not broken, a fireplace
blistering romp around
sulfur hell pathways cooled
by a river’s forced breeze,
bubbling. I seek dust
of a heavenly life. How is it
in winter, the magpies
pillage under the frost, under
leaves, pecking hardened soil
for sustenance? I pantomime
what it is to be. None of us
are around long enough to see
grass grow on volcanic ash.
The wind-warbling sputters
count the hisses, not gaps
if a final breath comes.
How is it when rain smolders
fog, when inflation hardens
stomachs, when lakes
of employment wither.
A government finds the voice
of people for votes—mutes
their music as if the orchestra
never played. I am
in a knuckled thirst, crinkled
veins, numbing mornings.
Mervyn Seivwright writes to balance social consciousness and poetry craft for humane growth. The Spalding MFA graduate, London-born Jamaican, appears in AGNI, Salamander, and 91 other journals in 14 countries, and a 2021/2023 Pushcart Nominee. His collection is “Stick, Hook, and a Pile of Yarn,” Broken Sleep Books. https://www.clippings.me/mervynseivwright
Leslie Lindsay’s work has been published in various literary and art journals, including: Up the Staircase Quarterly (cover art), Another Chicago Magazine (ACM), Wild Roof Journal, Spring-Summer, Brushfire Arts & Literature, The Closed Eye Open, Tiferet Journal, Mud Season Review, Western Michigan Review, Fall 2023, and On the Seawall, Model Home: A Study Under Compression, a photo essay in miniature, April 2023.
