Two Poems by Martin Willitts, Jr.

Anise

            (Pimpinella anisum)

   

Canopies of while umbrellas with licorice taste,

where are the dreams you promised?

 

Dreams have secret meanings until they are broken.

My wife suggests that I am foolish,

 

you are for menstrual cramps. No wonder wishes lead

to nothing. No wonder rain rises from earth to sky.

 

Nothing is what I thought it was. My wishes are wrong,

tasting of black-licorice rain.

 

 

 

 

Tanka

   

Three unripe persimmons are yesterday

not wasting words

with the nothing it has forgotten

telling one secret

generation to generation

 

 

 

 

Martin Willitts Jr has four full length poetry collections and over 20 chapbooks including recently, “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, ebook, 2013). His forthcoming poetry books include “Waiting For The Day To Open Its Wings” (UNBOUND Content, 2013), “Art Is the Impression of an Artist” (Edgar and Lenore's Publishing House, 2013), “City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2013), "A Is for Aorta" (Seven Circles Press, e-book, 2013), "Swimming In the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press, 2013),  and he is the winner of the inaugural Wild Earth Poetry Contest for his full length collection “Searching For What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013).