Night’s end

long ago, the paseo
lamplit streets

tree with a heart
tongue of a poet

we sat on stone pillows
where angels weep

poems for the coming age

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John Cage Dumplings

john cage dumplings

john cage dumplings
sunflower eyes

three passes by the stadium
firecracker stars

tumbling down the stairs
finnegans luck

crossing the street now
armful of something

maybe kisses

/now awaiting the tide

glass of hot sand
rose and fell of the tide
the moons slow heartbeat

poems for the coming age

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Dublin Poetry Podcast features Gary Gautier

Thanks to poetry mover and shaker of Dublin, Damien Donnelly, for having me back on his podcast, Eat the Storms. You can link to the episode (Spotify) HERE. I’m first up.

(The podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, etc.)

Follow the podcast. You’ll find lots of good stuff from one of the great poetry cities of the world, hosted by the warm and friendly voice of Damien. Say hi to Damien, and give him a shoutout for his efforts to give voice to poets of all stripes and stature.

Gary

Damien B Donnelly 

Poet and Podcast Producer

Website https://eatthestorms.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/eatthestorms/?hl=en

Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/0mOECCAcx0kMXg25S0aywi?si=ttUYKsf9TX-WaeitLg6hpA

Email eatthestorms@yahoo.com

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Poetry of love and physics

Love, Stars, and Paradigms. Poems by Swarn Gill. Literary Revelations Press, 2023.

Reviewed by Gary Gautier

Swarn Gill’s book of poems has a bit of everything, from politics to interesting conceptual hooks (“the love of time not noticed”; “we are the moment time vibrates”; “your life / in a groove no wider than a dime”) to the one-lining bravado of Allen Ginsberg (“Melville’s Ahab’s got nothing on me”; “capitalism has its eye on you”). Mostly though, these are intimate poems of human feeling, best when they settle into pockets of suggestive imagery (“a galaxy of gold / through curved lenses / of glass and tissue”). Interestingly, the intimacy is sometimes carried in panoramic Whitmanesque sweeps (“static electricity felt everywhere … the trees, the towers / the peaceful church steeples / me standing tall in a field”; “my carbon is breathed in the trees … I glide through time with magnificent ease.” Or in the imagery of physics and astronomy (“the quartz of you / crystallizing before my eyes”; “I rotate on my axis”; “I marvel at Saturn’s rings”). The collection was a little uneven for me – some poems captivated me less than others, and I struggled at times with the rhyming poems – but I found it strong overall, with lots of poems and hooks and closures I will long remember. Definitely worth reading more than once.

prostrate me
among the daisies
let emerald butterflies
send me to slumber

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Exiting the archive

We were in a crowded place.

No, we were on a boat
hearing the slap of water.

No, we were in the jungle
on a B-movie set.

There is no we
in the archive.

There is only I
with the husk
of the world

of the

sunrise, sunset, no pillow and stone,
no moving stars of earthly time,
just saltaway hope and who knows what
lavender rose and jacaranda
wine too bitter for the glass.

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New stock in NYC

Stock now replenished in NYC

Also available on Amazon. Full list here.

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First Reflection (voting is open)

#1 or #2

First reflection

deep in the night
lantern on a pier
lit and trembling
dark waves below

a voice, a shiver, a passing cloud,
a house with a garden
I can barely see

First reflection

deep in the night
lantern on a pier
lit and trembling
water at the base

a voice, a shiver, a passing cloud,
a house with a garden
I can barely trace

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Ex machina

fullness of heart
at first sight
sweet
.     calm
.          jagged
.               flowing
velvety as wine cream
.     sweet
.          calm
.               restless
the simplest of pleasures
a knit of human connection
a banquet of fruit and chocolate
deep and dark and bittersweet
and floating in the room
the candle now still
a time to depart
ex machina

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a dream of narrow passage

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The rains and the temple

Shiva’s giant trident
at Pasupatinath still wet,
a monkey, with child clinging
fast and dry to the belly,
eyes the pilgrim’s steps,
starts, reconsiders, decides
quickly for which tree
she is to run.

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Shortlisted for the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Prize