COLIN RUSSELL

WINDMILL IN EVENING

strident

foot out

the door

i thought

i’d go for a walk

soft as a dove

lost moth

alone

not in the absence

of beauty in the day

now that’s a beautiful spoon

pure white plastic spoon

blank slate purpose

without expectation

purpose without expectation

handle’s elegant shiny bend

a wrapped plastic spoon

if it pops off

in that office

driving you fast

didn’t want to feel

alone in that room anymore

again

it’s warm today

i noticed the last time

i came here it was very cold

woke up in soaked jeans

wallet soaked in piss

drying saturated bills

on a picnic table

“better each day”

read a card

windy day

as it picked up more

the drenched money

flew away

leaves dashed against me

exposed to myself like no other

something

heavy as a log

beyond belief

depressed stoned clouds

stretching like a line

no lion crashed city grass

a coin slipped

dense linen feeling

taking a few minutes

to watch the color change

on the water

fall over in the

damn city grass

those last

late afternoons

meeting you at the station

in front of the old store

brief moments

where i’d see you

before we arrived at each other

seeing you like a stranger

searching for me in the crowd

i felt so lucky

but now where has the time gone

i pass by the station now

an easy mark for certain people

i said something about

one day so much more

what is this search

still searching

at best

a bug sensing daylight

i can’t remember the tide

so then

at the end of there

cities in a duel

with hypothermia

“the grasp of cops”

karen brodine

illuminated sign

trash items

in time

ribbon flag

frothed blood

gets soon

after puncture

half globe

dried hill

enemies

fake poems

clouds lily pad

blouses clouds

silhouette turning

feathers clothes

walking home

or a history

the windmill overwhelms the viewer

the boulevard lined with trees

move to the shade

can’t move to the shade

of everything

anything

when was that golden age

other end of the map

it's never the best sunset

it’s another sunset

you’re lucky

becoming a part

to see

in washed

detailed sea

sugary hands

in memory

a nice day

for an afternoon

early years

in the house

chaotic

little things

my father’s remembering

of the book with the bunny

who chases the butterfly

and the butterfly chases me

small towns

across michigan

a quarry

in bluffton

drags in the bucks

used to get

high with that girl

ever since then

these things have

been happening to me

loaded money

to this minute

you’re getting

a phone call

just sounds like words

out the window

to stay busy

to do so

to not feel bad

signs read no walking

talking

then it rains all night

falls in centimeter

all night people

hurried home

imagine if something

was there to heal you

rain

trash-clogged

drains overflow

maybe i miss

having someone

to talk to

annoying man

at the end of the bar

begs my suicide

i’m trying it out in the middle

spill out from the station

in the din of it all

humbling price of starburst

mumbling verbatim

god’s accessible kingdom

i’ve thought about

getting into meteorology

see what factors

i can observe

in the day that may

let me know

if the sunset will be

beautiful that evening

but that would spoil the magic

also sometimes

i don’t think you can ever

predict it accurately

it’ll be cloudy

and rainy all day

then at the last

possible minute of light

the clouds part

and the sudden grandeur

is what

makes you

good

COLIN RUSSELL is a poet from Walnut Valley, West Virginia. "Windmill In Evening," will appear in the forthcoming book Constant Comfort on Community Mausoleum; currently he is writing Something Beautiful. He lives and works in Queens.