Jimmy Pappas
Jimmy Pappas served for the Air Force during the Vietnam War as an English language instructor training South Vietnamese soldiers. Jimmy received a BA in English from Bridgewater State University and an MA in English literature from Rivier University. He is a retired teacher whose poems have been published in many journals, including Rattle, Shot Glass Journal, Piker Press, Off the Coast, Boston Literary Magazine, The Ghazal Page, Hospital Drive, and War, Literature and the Arts. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He is a recent finalist in the Rattle 2017 Poetry Contest. (Jimmy Pappas@goodreads.com)
Spinoza on the Seine
She placed a sprig of parsley on the table
when she left me. She had to find herself,
as if she were a set of misplaced keys.
What she found of herself was what she
made of herself, a woman searching
for herself. Like Spinoza’s stone,
she believed she controlled the flight
of her life until she landed. Then she tried
to return and realized that the universe
is nothing more than God stretching.
Sheila-Na-Gig Inc. 