Bill Grace Poems

I can only read them for a little while
The truly good poets
I can not read them out loud
My wife does not find them gift
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An hour of continuous laps
A pool of Olympic length
Her beauty distracting from the pain
The nymph’s mounds rounded by halter and thong
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From public school my wife reminds me of the suicide
She left four children and a husband
A poet saddened who never met her
A poet who remembering very little
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The terrorists were very happy with bringing hell to earth
The Chaplain so depressed his General injected consolation
So when the devils did their work so well
Who but God could know that ten years later
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The animal is not ready to die
I need an “it is ok to let me go”
From him before we kill him.
I have seen the damage to a friend
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Leo Rockas informed my undergraduate mind
“The Reader’s Digest” was the antithesis
Of what I had to learn to strive for in his class,
The noble professor was of course correct.
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This thing that moved Japan five feet
Has moved the world to more than prayer
When keeping the old car running
With an installation of wiper blades in Texas
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I have read of those who burn their letters
Perhaps at death or verge of war or other extremis
I can only conjecture as one
Who never fully found communion with a woman
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Four Bibles have been given over time
Each one was gift
Though better at listening than in my youth
At age I wonder
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