All Kinds & Odes by William Wright Harris

All Kinds

Have you ever been so alone
you shouted into an abandoned well
just to hear your voice echo back?
Or held the door open for a group
of people just to feel them walk by;
just to have another person close to you?
An old woman hording cats,
trying to build friendships.
The old man feeding pigeons,
enjoying the feeling of being wanted. Needed.
Tommy Lee Jones in Coal Miner's Daughter, saying,
"There's all kinds of lonely people in the world"
into a cold telephone.

Ode to My Guitar

Orgasms should be this pure. Your
soft maple neck, holding the same

fingers that hold you. The way light
shimmers off your glittering body

when I swing you in my arms. My
digits slide up and down your

strings, stopping at frets only long
enough to make you sing or scream.

Ode to a Greek salad

tomatoes red as achilles’ blood left in the land of ilion
kalamata olives deep as helen’s hair

cucumbers proud as pan then happily sliced
feta cheese white as the clouds in zeus’ beard

bell peppers greener than the gaze of hera
onions purple the cold lips of cassandra bent skyward

olive oil poured like ambrosia over
lettuce as crisp as the hips of gaia

held lovingly in your hand before
being thrust inside you

being needed
being loved

at once nourishing and pleasing
i envy you

Ode to a Raindrop

I am a god,

     or at least,

          a part of one.

I spiral,

     turn in the air,

          a broken tear

falling from clouds

     upon the tops

          of umbrellas.

I can make mud,

     even puddles,

          cradles for toy boats

estuaries that

     boots may

          jump into.

I am an unborn

     snowflake, a

          tiny river falling

to the earth in

     a single, happy,

          deadly fall.

Laughter

a laugh

    f u  e  s

      l  tt  r and f

                      a

                      ll

                                                   s

d

 y

  i

   n

    g

      i

       n

        t

         h

          e

          w

            i

            n

             d

© William Wright Harris 2011




William Wright Harris's poetry has appeared in Immortal Verse and Favourite Memories, online publications as Poet's Ink and Languageandculture.net, and literary magazines such as Write On!!! and Ascending Aspirations. He is studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, and have studied poetry in the workshop setting from Marilyn Kallet, Arthur Smith, Jessie Janeshek and Marcel Brouwers. He has received the Editor’s Choice Award from Poetry.com as well as be published in  England, Canada and the United States of America.