Tuesday, July 3, 2012

3 poems by poet, Terry Jude Miller


Terry Jude Miller is a published and award winning poet from Fort Bend County, Texas.  A Juried Poet of the 2011 Houston Poetry Festival, his work has been published in dozens of print and online publications.  His poem, "The Diagnosis", appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal. He has read his poetry at venues throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.  Miller has just published his third book titled "The Butterfly Canonical." His two previous books of poetry are titled "The Day I Killed Superman" and "What If I Find Only Moonlight?" He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Gulf Coast Poets Society. Terry is a retired professor of eMarketing and held an Innovation Fellowship at Kaplan University.  He currently works as a marketing communications online systems and support manager for a Fortune Global 500 company. 

The Long Kiss

It is time's most practiced trick to turn what seems like yesterday
into decades of marriage, but here we are in our dog-earred page
of heaven watching the sun slip from its barky hook behind our
neighbor's pecan tree. This is a quiet time with few spoken
words because most of our communication has become telepathic
through practice and the unfolded knowledge of each other.
When we do speak, it's to break the silence with the most
important of all words, followed by a kiss, that for some grateful
reason, is longer than usual tonight.


~Terry Jude Miller

--------------
 
Letters To The Dead

I am east and you are as west as the sun will go. It is April, the
month of your birth. The mornings have learned to sing again
with the trembling voice of first light. I find it easier to talk to
you when I write down what I have to say. There are volumes on
my bookshelf gathering dust and sadness. Reflection is thin stem
ware that breaks at the least provocation; but if I fill it just right
and stroke it lightly with my tear-moistened finger, it sings just
what I desire to hear. Much forgiveness rolled between us in your
final years, followed by acceptance of never being able to change
what sets fast in early days. I imagine standing in your shadow,
then you stepping aside to let the sun reach me, as it does this
April morning when I wish you were here to share one more day's
unfolding.


~Terry Jude Miller

-------------------
 
Bather

in aqua arc
of the oscillating sprinkler
a mockingbird batons
his smoky wings
like a mad conductor
to keep his feathered being
aflight in the cool reprieve

clouds tearless for two months
hang like socks nailed to a blue wall
the early heat of late spring
pierces tiny creatures
who dare come so close

driven by necessities
risk-taking replaces knowledge
to sate thirsts
that prove the bird
in a partial definition of life

the sprinkler remains on
until the bather has quenched
his body

I am sated too
from a thirst of which
I was unaware


~Terry Jude Miller


More poems by Terry Jude Miller: 
Musician Wife

Video Poems by Terry Jude Miller:
Letters to the Dead


1 comment:

  1. I love Letters to the Dead. It resonates with anyone who has experienced a loss and makes me wish still that I could share a bottle of wine with an old friend—rather than reminisce with a lonely glass.

    What a beautiful poem.

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