Tuesday Poem - Buildings After Five by Bryan Walpert

Buildings After Five

Night falls room by room. Phones lie silent

in their cradles, file cabinets hold the closed

expressions they must keep until dawn, bare

arms of coat rack are raised as if stretched

for sleep. A leaflet flutters from its stack

as vents blow gently, then more gently still,

and dust, the skin of the air, settles

on the tracks of windows, on the bare heads

of lamps – as if rebuilding the world while

we leave ourselves each night as memory

to return changed, to shape the damp earth

with our feet, the cold air with our breaths,

and leave souls to linger, in our absence,

in all that we've touched. The vents exhale.

One chair faces a long night into the wall.

One leans towards the window and suffers the moon.

This poem is from Bryan's book Etymology published by Cinnamon Press.

http://www.cinnamonpress.com/etymology/

Bryan was born in America and now lives in Palmerston North in New Zealand where he is a a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University. And he is the nicest bloke you would meet on a long day's march. A fascinating and generous conversationalist, with an intense commitment to the art of writing, and a fine poet. His book is a delight. I very much liked the lines in Dear Persephone – 'That's motherhood/a doorway that thinks/it is the room.'

He has got a new book out - A History Of Glass.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936205416/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl/?ie=UTF8&tag=writimatte01-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1936205416