Two Poems | Mervyn Seivwright
POETRY
9/6/20261 min read
Can you celebrate with me
on this side of the soil. Each breath,
unnoticed, gasping alert
from thrushes gossiping
before alarm. Bright blue and reddish hues
in sun’s arms stretching along sky,
my Catawba blossoms only for weeks
primed after two years gone by.
I face a world, feeling
on puppet strings. I choose
to accept a world of me,
each half decade, head resting
with varied pillows, dwellings
in a world scaffolded mentally.
While around me
chess pieces are shifted
by color, culture, capital.
Lines of belonging, a voice—
subdued. Placed
in mildewed scent cringing corners
to be unheeded life.
Is living, cutting the curves
of a puzzle piece,
allowing yourself to fit?
For some reason
I keep one side serrated.
I Wandered a Cobblestone Pass
Half-buried in rubble, smooth stones
wondering who’s dissipating footprints
of centuries past sauntered here. I followed
buttercups from my childhood, placed
under the chin to glow butter—adored,
lined beside the helicopter seeds
from dandelions inflating my cheeks
for the seeds to fly. I followed greenfinch
and song thrush’s whistles echoing
within walls of sky-reaching pines.
I followed duppies felt in the wind
trapped between lavender water-
painted flowers and the meadows
in the haze shapes of pollen standing by.
Mervyn Seivwright writes to balance social consciousness & poetry craft for humane growth. He is Jamaican, born in England. He has appeared in AGNI, African American Review, Salamander Magazine, Poetry.Online, & 92 other journals across 14 countries. He is the 2024 Marvin E. Williams Literary Prize winner & a 2021/2023 Pushcart Nominee. His collection is Stick, Hook, and a Pile of Yarn, Broken Sleep Books.