Peter G. Quinn
small things
full length poetry book release;
March 2023 from Turning Point Press
small things endeavors to notice the tiny, incremental, everyday things that had an outsized impact on who I am. Tactile as a shaving brush, impactful as brief experiences that took hold and would not let go.
I am excited and humbled by Turning Point Press’s faith in my book as well as their dedication to poetry for the last twenty-four years – that in itself, is no small thing.
Here is a blurb from Gary Lemons, a marvelous poet whose Snake Quartet, a Miltonesque series from Red Hen Press has enthralled me for years:
“Here is an extraordinary collection of poems that ,like an emotional wildfire sends sparks across our past--present and future--igniting long forgotten desires and dreams. Upon the architecture of loss built upon love the reader enters a time machine where personal experiences--some ethereal--some palpable-come back to life against the backdrop of our collective humanity. Think of Lorca and the Sonnets of Dark Love or Wakoski--And Now She Has Disappeared in Water---the poems in small things are poems written at the finish line in exquisitely woven verse.
But as the best poetry does--these poems also chip at the surface of our preconceptions--forgiveness we learn is a gift only the living can offer the dead.
small things is a haunting--deeply human--beautifully conceived road map through and out of suffering into self-awareness--even joy--that will be as relevant 1000 years from now as it is today.”
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Three Realities
I. Confine
We are asked to strand ourselves
make our house an island.
Protection Island out our window
now seems an elder.
How long will it be? What if it’s longer
than the stalwart freezer can give?
How close to touch live skin
will we get again?
How often to venture out?
For what essential or forgotten thing?
Where will cash come from?
What bills can be paid?
Any checks in the mail today?
Pray tomorrow.
How long will
neighbor helping neighbor hold ?
The world is focused
upon big cities at least
a coast away.
My little town shuttered and shuddering
braced for the maybe,
maybe the certainty of losing
store, job, neighbor, life.
The only certainty;
yesterday is gone.
Masks and soap
enough food and FedEx
the essentials – unless
they run out of things to deliver.
Patience is courage.
A red breasted house finch
flies in softer, lighter air,
its song a joyful hymn
calm, bright and free.
II Conflict
Witness the daily scree
catch every word
count the
“incredible’s”
“unbelievable’s”
“they will magically disappear’s”.
Ego balloons defensive
accusations a covering fire to
doubt, confusion,
from hoax
to fifteen cases
then two million
now one hundred-thousand dead.
Now more. Now more. No more.
Blood-eyed vulture tears
at the sinews of our future.
III Convalesce
We’ve stopped the suffocating
spray of your oil
into your water, your sky.
You are freed from our need to go
as fast as we can
as far as we wish
as often as we please.
We’ve exhausted you
taken more than our fair share
not asked
thanked or honored you
as if we owned
not owed you.
I will be the least I can
let you breathe
be your tempered witness.
Turtles come to empty shores, laden with
leathery eggs, replenish in quantity.
Therapy
There is a smell
to warm leather
almost sweat or
am I projecting?
Someone, five minutes
before, sat where
I am now, talked,
clung to a tassle
on the Moroccan pillow
golds, browns, reds
they spilled their hearts
admitted their worries
sobbed, took a tissue
from the box on the
next cushion, still there;
their warmth drained
into the leather
three-cushion-couch
round arms, high back
I have now sunk into
reaching for the pillow
ready for my turn to bleed.
Mt. St. Helens
Nineteen Eighty
A grape stained piece of canvas
held ryebread,
Jonathan apples,
Camembert cheese
an anonymous bottle of wine
theifed from a barrel, tagged
with brix sugar, crush date.
We worked Yamhill vineyards
pulled weeds, liberated, trained
vines, absorbed the metre,
measure of – outside, felt gentle
pulse of a volcano as it sighed in, out
purging what was too much for it
to hold. We watched the volcano channel,
sixty miles away, it filled the screen.
We sat on the tailgate in red
Dundee hills drank in life as St. Helens
built to deadly, silent then,
uncaring of our point
in its time.