I am five years old
a paper thin streak, blue above yellow,
stretches the horizon of my whole life;
there are no limits, yet,
to punctuate the parallax of boredom
where black sedans cough out rumble strips
along the broken tar sand and gravel streets,
and church congregations sing psalms
to Cretaceous gods buried eons ago;
there is nothing but red hues and forever,
the fatherly gaze of a constant sun,
the motherly caress of a kind breeze,
from dark clouds spring tears, roses, and tulips,
and tree fingers lift up the lid of a pure blue sky
to reveal the dewy palms of a long summer day;
the brown prairie soil I sprang from
rich in promises and a thousand tomorrows,
unspent, undreamt, unwrapped,
lie as unexplored as an ocean of wheat;
and time, the drum beats within a tiny chest
hum with a song that is life itself
like Beatles tunes or Joni Mitchell ballads
crackling over plastic transistor radios,
or hazy black & white TVs and newspaper hats at parties,
or family dinners huddled under an autumn moon
waiting for blizzards and bombs,
and there is hockey and heroes and hope
a red tricycle in the middle of the lawn,
and Dr. Seuss and warm apple pie and hot baths
and towels tumbled straight from the dryer,
and disappointment is a word years away.
~ Rob K. Omura
Rob K. Omura lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he lives from oil plumes, surrounded by vistas and all the trappings of modern living. He prefers to spend his days hopping mountain ridges in the Rockies, where there is nothing else to consider by the next step and the majestic views, and sometimes he even dabs the wet ink and ties words on to lines. His fiction and poetry appears or is forthcoming in numerous literary journals, ezines, and anthologies including the New York Quarterly. His poetry aired on CBC Radio for National Poetry Month in April, 2008. He was a 2009 Pushcart nominee. Sometimes he works on his novel, and at other times, he drinks coffee, sighs and wonders when he’ll get back to work on his novel.
“Writing poems is like carving stone; although you often see what the stone wants to be, it takes a sharp chisel and a little blood and sweat to bring it forth. You don’t create the stone; you merely give it the shape it wants to be.â€
Read more of Rob K. Omura’s poetry here:
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