Unheard
by John L. Stanizzi
Those were the days when I could run
along the stone fence toward the house
that looked so much like corduroy.
So many lives come and gone
with their stories,
leaving the old place like new, in a way
that allowed me a clean palette upon which
I might compose my own gauzy stories,
tales that would remain for only a moment.
Almost instantly the themes of my stories will be gone,
though their thoughts will fill the air with possibilities,
potentials that, whether they are used or not,
most of us will never be privy to;
they are there but unheard.
Even the familiar words will be as mysterious as
bats that flap into view
hauling shards of sky
across the firmament
before they vanish back to where
they were awakened from
their silent slumber,
their echolocution bursting with stories
we will never hear.
John L. Stanizzi is author of the collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, and POND. John’s poems have been widely published and have appeared in Praxis, Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Potomac Review, The Caribbean Writer, Blue Mountain Review, Rust + Moth, Tar River, Poetlore, Rattle, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others. His work has been translated into Italian and has appeared widely in Italy, including the journals El Ghibli, The Journal of Italian Translations Bonafini, Poetarium, and others. His nonfiction has been published in Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, Adelaide, Scarlet Leaf, Literature and Belief, Evening Street, Praxis, and others. A former New England Poet of the Year, John is the Flash Fiction Editor of Abstract Magazine TV, and he has read at venues all over New England, including the Mystic Arts Café, the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Hartford Stage, and many others. For many years, John coordinated the Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for Young Poets at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT. He is also a teaching artist for the national recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud. A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and New England Poet of the Year, John teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com.
Red Wolf Journal 