Three poems by TOM MONTAG

STORM ON THE SPANISH PEAKS

Sky wishing for ocean

a long way from home.

THE DARK NIGHT

The monk-poet lies down

into the stinging darkness.

He does not choose the silence.

The silence chooses him.

The monk-poet does not sleep

but falls to his emptiness.

This is enough for now

as the dark night burns

his light down to nubbin.

He does not choose to rise again.

His rising chooses him.

THIS POEM, A PAINTING

the oil not yet dried.

All the things we promise,

some of them are lies.

Birds somewhere; somewhere

blue sky. From here you hear

morning sound in the house.

Outside the light flatters

the streets, the trees, the grass.

A bit of ground fog hangs

in the damp air. When it

dissipates, something

substantial remains,

lovely, yet not quite

cured, not yet dried.

**

TOM MONTAG is most recently the author of In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013. He is a contributing writer at Verse-Virtual. In 2015 he was the featured poet at Atticus Review (April) and Contemporary American Voices (August) and at year's end received Pushcart Prize nominations from Provo Canyon Reviewand Blue Heron Review. Other poems will be found in a variety of small journals.