Distances
“How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away”
-W.S. Merwin
-The Moon Before Morning
1
Closeness became an illusion
like one darkness passing slowing
through the eyes of another
2
Alone with furniture
that will not hide its face
I wait
counting the ghosts
that spiral up from the wood’s grain
and tick by
3
When I return
I am silent
I do not wake you
Thinking this does not concern you
I let you sleep
4
Sunrise
and I must leave
You try to touch me
but the blaze of these moments
will not allow it
I am too protective
of the light that coats my morning
5
We do not exchange the colors
spreading within us
One light passes quickly unnoticed
through the eyes of the other
John L. Stanizzi is the author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, POND, The Tree That Lights The Way Home, Feathers and Bones. Viper Brain, and SEE.Besides Discretionary Love, John’s work has been widely published — Rattle, Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Tar River Review, PoetLore, and many others.
His nonfiction has been published in Literature and Belief, Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, and many others.
John has read at venues all over New England, including the Mystic Arts Café, the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Hartford Stage, and many others. He also coordinated the Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for Young Poets at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut. A “teaching artist” for the national poetry recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud, John spent a decade with Poetry Out Loud
A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, New England Poet of the Year (1998), and Poet-in-Residence in Manchester, CT, John has recently been awarded an Artist Fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction – 2021 – from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Culture, and Diversity for work on his new memoir, Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned. He taught literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut, for 26 years. He taught high school English and directed the theater program at Bacon Academy in Colcheseter, CT. for 24 years. Johnnie lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, CT.
