ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Stephen Furlong is a poet living outside Kansas City, Missouri. He currently is an adjunct instructor at Metropolitan Community College-Longview. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming from Flypaper Lit, Louisiana Literature, and Pine Hills Review, among others. Additionally, he currently serves as a staff reviewer for the journal Five:2:One and works specifically for the subset LitStyle.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
Nostalgia
Most Days I Long to be An Ampersand
— for Charlie Reutemann
— after a line from Devin Kelly
and most days, I’m okay
with living, it isn’t always
but sometimes. I have seen light
dance in rooms I believed I did not
belong. My childhood was spent
in a room I did not create — the foundation
consisted of wooden beams, paint,
and a matter of life is death.
My friend Devin says death is most
our lives. I believe him.
Most days I long to be an ampersand
because
language is fallible.
But to be a symbol,
the image of continuance,
is enough.
With you, I am a room full of pictures
framed by
memory
and I want to
capture you here
Because at the end of this,
I want to know
There’s me
but there’s also you.
The poem is dedicated to my best friend Charlie who entered my life the summer before seventh grade at a summer enrichment program that was designed to help students get acclimated to the work expected at the school I was transferring to beginning in the fall. We grew to be best friends a couple years later and this year will be thirteen years strong. Speaking to the poem directly, I am often fearful of being alone, but I know with people like Charlie, I'm not alone. It's pretty much a love poem for my best friend. And, Devin Kelly is a poet whom I deeply admire, who also appears a friend in the poem and in my life. Both in the concept of "death is most our lives" and the poetic spacing I employ are nods to him. And, with a nod to Amorak Huey, I hope it's about those things.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
