3 More Poems from Zimmer

I have recently been quite busy. How you may ask does someone without a job become busy? I will just say that I have been busy.

My friend Ari is on a poem writing spree and wants me to continue to share his words with the world. While I wish he would join the 21st century and start a blog of his own, I think it is more important to get these poems out into the world. It is difficult to know where the inspiration for poetry comes from, but it is best to grab it while it is around. Ari, is writing some great poems these days, here are but a few:

"through the windows"

The girl behind the counter.
The sun through the windows.
It's almost four and it's Sunday
and the girl behind the counter
helps me find a book, any book,
a book as a gift, a book to teach,
a book to read, a book to touch, to hold.
A book thick in my hands,
its pages fat against my fingers.

The girl behind the counter.
Her bangs in her eyes.
Her brown bangs in her eyes.
We smile and she pulls down books
and I hold them and I listen and the room is warm
and the books are warm and I want to brush back her bangs
because they have fallen in her eyes.

I want to buy these books and read these books.
I want to read each word, over and over again, until the words
have jammed themselves inside me, until the words start banging to get back out.

A girl in a bookstore in the afternoon.
I want to leave and have her leave with me,
I want us.
Us in bed.
Us in July.
Us in the morning
over tea.
Us with our books.

And then us in a fight, in tears.
Us on the phone.
In tears.

Us years later.
Her hair in her eyes.
I reach out,
brush it back.
Out of habit.

---

"next to me"

My father.
Sitting next to me.
In San Francisco.
It's night and it's windy.
I am a boy and with my father
in San Francisco sitting in the top deck
of Candlestick Park. And it's windy.
His giant red coat,
spread across both of us.
Like a blanket.

We are here because I love Guerrero. Sax. Garvey. And Cey.
The stadium
packed
raw
angry
loud.
They cheer for the Giants and detest the Dodgers.
A few have brought batteries to chuck
at Guerrero and Sax and Garvey and Cey.

From our seats
the players are distant grey and white dots.
But I know who they are from they way the dot moves.
That dot hit 32 homers last year.
This dot can no longer find his throw to first base.

It's windy and I hide behind the coat.
I am with my father watching baseball at night.
I am in San Francisco, awake an hour past bedtime.

The dots are small and nearly identical.
The crowd is drunk and cold and angry.
One large dot. One noisy dot. The stadium a dot.
San Francisco a dot. California. North America. A dot.
A dot. A small boy in the dot. In the wind. At night.
His dad warm against him, underneath the red coat.


----

"built below ground"

The room is built below ground.
The one window opens to
a burst of feet flashing by,
shuffled steps muted behind thick glass.

the kids clutch their paper and read.
They read the song to themselves.
Then with their teacher.
And then they all sing together,
the stereo on, the music loud.

Some kids stand.
Others bang on their table.
A few have it all figured out.

We are George. And Mir. And Mary and Mona.
We are Nic. And we are Arthur. We are Dennis.
We are 1st graders and we love books and music and words.

We sing.
We sing.
Our voices bouncing off walls,
filling up the room built below ground.