Andrew Shields


Campfire

The crumpled balls of paper start to burn.
The twigs and sticks above them catch on quick.
The logs on top are harder to convince.
But in the end, they burn, like all the rest.

The embers glow till only Venus shines.
The ashes stir when sunrise brings a breeze.


Mandolin

My chilly fingers
played

across the mandolin's
fret

board and strings,
ringing

into the cool
October

day while I
waited,

on a slightly
damp

bench above the
asphalt

path to the
beach

beside the North
Sea,

for wife and
son,

who were late
again.


Romance

Another minor character dies
and rises up to heaven,
described in just a few short lines.
This author's now killed seven,

sacrifices to the plots
of novels, plays, and stories,
whose protagonists do not
have any major worries,

except for whom they'll finally wed
at their happy ends.
Then they will forget the dead,
their long-lost, minor friends,

until they end up dying someday
in a tale unwritten,
leaving someone else to say,
"I don't care a bit."


Those Who Wake At Night

There's something profound about lying awake at night:
moments of melancholy philosophy
form transitory constellations as bright
as the Milky Way, as orderly
as any Cassiopeia or Orion.
But not for revelation did I wake
last night: I woke to hear the baby crying,
then stayed awake with a cough that made me shake
all over every time I closed my eyes.
In such a night, who can philosophize?