Folder and Veteran

By James Patrick

Folder

Here, take these, read them,

keep them, burn them.

I put them by, kept in a folder 
the verses you passed to me
wrapped in a note with instructions
trying out your woman’s voice 
on a man you chose to trust
knew from the first I’d need to keep them
with the notes and letters now and then
thereafter since it’s all I’d have of you
knew you’d own my heart one day
if not already, that one day certain
I’d have to steal a kiss and walk away
and now that you’ve been gone so long
not knowing still quite what to do with me
I must have burned them somehow or other
they like you now nowhere to be found.

Veteran

Trudging through another year of promised duty,
still with an eye for you; hard to see in the grey
of time as to stay upright.

Head bent like a soldier’s, campaigns of memory
slung over his shoulder—not all of them a burden,
yet trade it all for peace.

Be the one to find me then, even as I cross over; 
you and I will meet at long last, speak again,
touch and know each other.

James Patrick, teacher, actor and director, now an adjunct college instructor of speech communication and film has been writing for a long time: personal journals, poetry, and academic pieces, believing that good teachers need to do, and to work at, what they teach.

This is his first season publishing poetry, pieces of which have appeared in Ariel Chart, GLT, and Iconoclast.