jaybookworm

Library of Unfinished Poems: Table of Contents by Jay Bookworm Eilers Each phrase is a rough draft, an unanswered and unanswerable question Chafing at my consciousness One and then another is laid on the table – Rising thoughts as emotions ebb and flow What is the measured level of content? As if the words were statistics Of failure and success? Of loneliness and connection? Each shelf is a crack in my heart upon which books are stacked In an attempt to plug up the awkwardness of unsatisfactory experiences Seeping through to flood my mind Each book is filled with questions appropriate to the title Words shift around like

Collage of Family Sighs: Grandparents: Part One Joyfully colored lyrics leap off the canvas, dancing to the strains of the steel guitar. A sweet, soft voice sings in harmony, In sharp contrast to, years later, when that same voice would be silent, Expelling only a mournful sigh, when musician was separated from singer, When his heart beat stopped, his beat continued on in heaven. A photo of a figure skater, dancing across the gleaming ice, stands affixed. The skater appears and dissolves. She is the image and he frames her with his lens. These two are now separated through an absence of mind for one, body for the other. The danc