Tim Gavin

It is the sound of the log splitting
and its echo
which marks my passage
into manhood. My father stands
...

Venus’s been hovering west of the moon,
following Earth’s satellite like a dog
looking for a bone. Each night, I walk
through Bryn Mawr, climbing each steep hill
...

Strike a match and light your sky
And stars will swirl like sparklers
Cart wheeling towards a black hole
...

On a pier right above the Delaware & adjacent to a factory,
a man takes a lunch break,
legs kicking absent-mindedly as he ponders
the number of holes he needs to drill through
...

And I sit here, hearing a muse snicker,
Informing me that I’ll never compose
A poem worth the time wasted on it.
I pace the floorboards and listen
...

Here he was the summer of '29,
driving a coal truck from upstate down route
611 towards Philly. He bought
cosmos at a road side stand
...

I

daffodils tinged brown arched over
hunch backed broken
...

“Jesus was led up by the spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted.”
Matthew 4: 1
...

from your past
like a lost sock
beneath your bed
& don't duck behind clouds
...

The ball blazes red on the horizon
& dissipates like napalm over the river
it could bring down the skyline
of Philly if it weren't for the birds
...

The notion is beyond
intellect -
it’s hard to grasp edge of infinity;
we want one more step
...

outside the liquor store a bum
begs for loose change.
car fare, he said, but the glint in his eye
of disillusionment and fury
...

Yes, the rain deferring to the sun, shining
Through clouds, revealing dust hovering
In a shaft of light. Yes to the ice caps
On mountains melting, forming rivers
...

As kids we would sneak out to Long Pond Bridge
When the sun settled beyond
the white birch sky-line. We would look
at the manmade lake, our reflections
...

I graph the points I’ve touched along railroad tracks;
among stones and broken ties I count my losses.

My gains, reflected in muddy puddles,
...

Is the vision one has in the morning
After the first cup of coffee

The squeaky-clean sight line of pine trees and hills immediately
...

Forget the wild weeds along the river
and the dirt paths dividing the mountains.
Let me embrace the city,
its rotten canals and its tankers. I will ride
...