by Robert Lietz

1
                                                                                Preliminaries

        Dawn’s slush, truck-spatter, and
this good timing,
        I think, new tires installed, considered
through six seasons,
        shared with this music marveled on,
these archipelagoes
        of sound, snow, morphologies of error
and confecting, as if
        winter were not so much a confidence
as comfort, so much
        a reflexive zoom, or freeze or shuddering,
but fears and failures
        to pounce on and pick up from,
preliminaries to bear,
        to put in motion, but preliminaries still,
these block fathers
        say, their eloquent if massaged
sobriety, past
        midnight, out of doors,
since the cold
        could never dissuade such dancing
or the gym-moves,
        nor curfew such pageant then,
and is, as
        unready still, no match for
the lingo
        and disclosures.

2
                                                                                Mission Murders

        Another weekend done, filling the spaces
snow could not
        make nothing of, wind-crusted snow laid on
remembering
        the blue and salmon mile-marking bridges
have no use for, but
        figures the haze, the fog left of Midwest-wide cold
and freezing drizzle
        the snow-grounded woods themselves seem
wary of. And here, there,
        some crow, testing the fog-sleeved acres
and express-lanes,
        senses this fog is sure to lift, by noon maybe,
searched by this single
        chestnut horse and Amish buggy, crossing
the lanes ahead,
        then gone, leaving these cows, tucked
snug behind,
        like the news from a week of mall
and mission
        murders, all in this Advent
        get along.

3
                                                                                Miserere

        What’s to understand, besides, half-way
at Mansfield,
        besides the semi-spatter, fog, the film critique
and Pater Noster,
        and Morning Edition still, commingled
with Church Latin,
        and this flashing now, a little beyond the Cleveland,
Capital exchanges,
        finding its way on the hill lanes, this Miserere yes,
these doping disclosers,
        yes, professions of defiance or contrition, truckers
inspired, on iced routes,
        to test the troopers’
lenience, and not so much a poem, but
        for timing and
formation, for cause to concentrate on bridge travel,
        one more car off, down the embankment, two,
and ice
        worth reckoning, with no turning back, and motion
say, incipient
        maneuvers fog and ice ask in agreement, and
the ice score-cards,
        ice tubes depending from underpass and slope drains,
keeping the mind’s
        Upstate half-lifetime simply honest, even in snow
so light old school-friends
        sit smiling, thinking toward Christmas still, despite
the weekend’s predicted rain,
        and, maybe, too early to tell, another muddy trek,
more fog, obscuring
        the Friday, Monday miles, and, as profoundly
needful yes,
        entreating Your notice, Lord, as earnestly
flawed,
        with love such as I have never known
here at issue, and
        such poems, I think, as only
light years
                happen on.

500 of ROBERT LIETZ’s poems have appeared in more than one hundred journals in the U.S. and Canada, in Sweden and U.K, including Agni Review, Carolina Quarterly, Epoch, The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah. Seven collections of poems have been published, including Running in Place (L’Epervier Press,). At Park and East Division ( L’Epervier Press,) The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press,) The Inheritance (Sandhills Press,) and Storm Service (Basfal Books). Basfal also published After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems.