Stuart Stromin
Stuart Stromin is a South African-born writer and filmmaker, living in Los Angeles. He was educated at Rhodes University, South Africa, the Alliance Francaise de Paris, and UCLA. His work has appeared before in Sheila-Na-Gig online, River River, Blood Puddles, 500 miles, The Cynic, and other journals.
The Edge
Now, where was I
at the beginning of the spring,
swinging beneath the willow leaves;
small hands on old ropes,
legs defying gravity.
Now, what was I saying
when you came in…
I was in the middle of a story –
a sort of joke, at least, funny –
if you have a sense of humor,
for that sort of thing.
I was right on the edge
like a tightropewalker crossing pylon
to pylon on electric cables.
On the edge
in the ragged margins
where the paper has been torn,
riding along the lip of the high clifftop.
No fear
of
falling
A Supper For Banquo
The old oyster-beds,
of sunken wire and splinters
along the coast of Normandy,
stretched out for flat miles
of mud,
to the vague silver horizon.
But I never could imagine
where the high tide went;
or why
you could prefer
another man’s love,
in the evenings
when I was still so handsome.
In my mouth,
like a block of dirty ice,
I surrendered
to the taste of lobsters and Muscadet
in the beach-front brasseries,
where the sea-breeze
with a whiff of silt
swept off the promenade,
and we were speaking
French which the Parisians
could not understand.
I would not know
what things to do
now,
on another night with you,
not even how to stay warm
in the spaces,
where the steely wind
invades between the palm trees.
I never recognized the figures on the roadside,
patient as statues,
I never saw the blades.
Even the hungry travelers
keep far from the banquet,
aloof as backwash.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 