NIGHT IS LONGER
by Leonard Gontarek
featured on Life As Activism 

anarchy isn’t for everyone can you hear me now
find your soul paint here on a saturday night
light is grandfathered in we sit in an ancient garden
dropping flower seeds and breadcrumbs dripping blood
beauty and music descend leaves and petals circulate
in the world the world grows dark and people grow older
x-rays float in the stream two car doors slam two doors down I sing

in silence I longed for the past and the present
and when I grew tired I longed for the longing
it may be that I distrust when things dovetail
that I distrust endings that come and sweep us away neatly
it is the story I am suspicious of perhaps lives move from desire to desire
from event to event with sense survivors float on the one sea
half-believing in rescue and it is enough

I heard that you asked if the reality is reality
if when the crickets and night fall on the lake the soul is off
if when we fall we fall like a bird
if we should be patient in our own good time in our good clothes
as night descends on the ruins of rain if the leaves of autumn are small favors
if in the seasons of migration we live and die by prediction and dusk tinged and wrong
sorry we are not here to figure out the world but to express it

Leonard Gontarek is the author of six books of poems, including Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket and He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs. He coordinates Peace/Works, Philly Poetry Day and the Philadelphia Poetry Festival, and hosts the Green Line Reading & Interview Series. He has received Poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Writers Conference Community Service Award, and was a Literary Death Match Champion. His poem, “37 Photos From The Bridge” was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project.

Image credit: Sylvain-Reygaerts on Unsplash