Doug Bolling

Doug Bolling’s poetry has appeared in Posit, Blaze VOX, Poetry Pacific, Slant, Juked, Rust and Moth, and Vita Brevis among others. He has received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations and several awards and lives in the environs of Chicago.

The Songs Of It

The spaces and times of a life.
We walked there dodging among
Our dozen or so pasts, the stares
Of them sitting in judgment.

At the Blue Bistro we made words
From the thick air, turned to drink
To cool down the fevers, departed
For the theater to rehearse
The unwritten script.

0n stage we invented ourselves,
Paraded in the gaudy suits of
Pretend, scorned the audience
Tight lipped, buttoned up,
Knives ready.

Was each day a tapestry nailed
To the walls of that imaginary
Castle, a mélange of so
Many nouns, baskets of verbs,
Flesh undecided about itself.

But the questions.
The dangling grammar of
A life, ours.
Those voices trapped
Within us.

The sounds of life tearing our way.
The songs heard unheard

But there.
The dense gravity of it all.
Which way to turn.

We stood. We listened.
Into the north wind we sang
From the blood we carried
Daring the gods.