Guilt
hear me moon,
and forgive me my friend the highway;
I smell burnt fields like the world’s campfire;
Midnight grows cold this time of spring.
• • •
Empire
But if by London you mean the river Thames,
City, Globe, Oxford Street, pubs with names like
Seven Gables or the Bells of Saint Anne, then no.
Jaundice-yellow lamplight has taken the place
of the Tower and the Bridge, vying for her
in strips like Rothko painting a declining sun,
among gathering clouds. We will lie when day comes,
pooling this room in blue; sigh and die, she and I,
in a patter of mouths and limbs; echoing off walls
and on the page, this city, too, knows rain.
• • •
Coastlines
Travelling from Prizren,
Gliding over the cliffs of Montenegro,
A pair of stars seep into the fog:
We are in the clouds,
Where Albanian bagpipes whistle at 3 am;
I always suspected heaven was a van.
• • •
Jacob Jirák grew up in rural central Kansas. Life has taken him to New York, Kansas City, and Prague. His work has appeared in Terrain.org, BlazeVOX, and American Mensa’s Calliope.