3 Poems by Joris Soeding

 Darkening Grant Park

I desired to reach

and hold her small feet

—a nearby stranger’s

rather the night had three stars

and decreased traffic swallowed

the first summer’s wind

its tongues indecisive

at their gasps


Cleaving to this Considered

I can’t remember recent days where I didn’t run from rain

but that only lasts for so many hours

 

the sweet of wetness prolonged by red cedars

faraway tops of trees, fog

planes and a patient swivel until breaking water for merely arrival

 

I already familiar with the afternoon orchestra

and not because of past lives

 

storming soon lost among mountains

it is time

to walk in this unusual drowsiness


Howard and Sheridan

This is what a rainstorm is like

arriving in segments

I’ve even forgotten the splintering

it makes on rooftops

this is what it’s like to have someone

at the side of hands

to have us be the last awake

our chests lit by lightning

and the Marathon gas station

this is too late for criminals

yet the birds have settled on song

this is the blue before sunrise

the moments of being able to only see

last waves from Michigan to concrete

the drops, the mud, the touch

our acting as puzzles

and this walk to another train station

this is what feeling is on a Friday morning

this is breathing without music

Bionote

Joris Soeding’s most recent collections of poetry are Forty (Rinky Dink Press, 2019) and Home in Nine Moons (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2018). Soeding’s writing has appeared in publications such as Another Chicago Magazine, Columbia Poetry Review, Concho River Review, and Red River Review. He is a 7th/8th grade Social Studies teacher in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, son, and daughter.