2 Poems by James B. Nicola

Frost Bites #3: Exhaustion

      I could do This, I think,
but then, I could do That; I know
on One path I’d speed but at a brink;
      the Other’s safe but slow.

      And then there's always There:
Is That a place that I should go?
Or is Here as good as Anywhere
      and High as fine as Low?

      The possibilities
are tiring as a life is long—
longer when I’m made ill-at-ease
      by choices proven wrong.
        Though what I think I need
is, wrong or right, to strive—
and exhaustion, since I don't succeed,
      to remind me I'm alive.

from the  Frost Bites sequence


potter putter putz

potter putter putz
fiddle faddle futz
mind’ll wander fumble CRASH
putz futz klutz


Bionote

James B. Nicola has had 300 poems published in periodicals including Atlanta Review, Tar River, Texas Review, Lyric, and Nimrod. A Yale grad and stage director by profession, his book Playing the Audience won a Choice Award. As a poet, he also won the Dana Literary Award and a People's Choice award (from Storyteller); was nom­inated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award; and was featured poet at New Formalist. His children’s musical Chimes: A Christmas Vaude­ville premiered in Fairbanks, Alaska—with Santa Claus in attendance opening night.