Two Poems

by Ross Knapp

Refuge

The background is ablaze in splendor!

Sun shoots through the leaves in the trees

Beginning to bloom and burst forth

Into first beauty of the year

Too busy to remember winter’s betrayal

The trees create a slim silent shield keeping me safe

Right now, right here, just right

My eyes scan the squirrels

My skin brushes up against the glorious genius girl beside me

She smiles like Sappho

Brilliantly

Unashamedly

Fearlessly

Perfectly

Green gushes forth from the ground

Gnawing playfully and knowingly between my bare feet

Gentle breezes gust round and round

My arms and face feel the warmth of bathing light

Birds buzz and chirp in cheerful contentment

Singing forth short euphoric choruses

Simple cars rumble down suburban streets

My old wooden bench swings back and forth

Singing its squeaky monotone melody

Saturdays are the best of days

Few obligations or complications

One of the only refuges from the craze

Coffee

Black as death

Is the way

Cream, sugar

Syrups, milk

Overdone

Disgusting

Repulsing

Vulgar masks

When grown and

Roasted right

Ground just right

Brewed just right

Take your pick

Espresso

Thick Turkish

Fancy French

Stovetop sludge

Dripbrews too

Infinite ways

To inspire

Drink the rich

Dark liquid

And live as

Life relents

Just a bit

Mind muses

Up up up

Drink think do

Skits in flits

Compulsions

To do all

To succeed

To achieve

Oh coffee!

Stimulant

Compliment

To my id

Lazy me!

ROSS KNAPP  is a recent college graduate with degrees in philosophy and English literature who's also a graduate student in an MFA creative writing program. He has written an experimental literary novel and has also read and written poetry extensively independently in addition to working a day job to pay the bills. Originally he was planning on law school or a PHD in philosophy but decided to follow his passions and pursue poetry and writing as a career. Some of the poets he admires most are Sappho, Virgil, Li Po, Hafiz, Francois Villon, Dante, Keats, Whitman, Akhmatova, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Eliot, Pound, Crane, Millay, Thomas, Sexton, Lowell, Ginsberg, and Plath.