Three Poems by Philip Kobylarz

Strike Here

Home-coming. Leave taking. That place, again to and from, where lights scintillate,

                                                                                                et cetera, with no

where like the smell of baked bread. How predictable traffic is, obeying false stars.

                                                                                                Money, brightly colored;

stain left by lawns too much watered. Time resists its table, whereas wind knows

                                                                                                what to do with matches.

Mercurial

Scribe. With a name known only to himself. Waits to pen letters to friends in Tunisia

                                                                                                Algiers, Morocco, or

Amsterdam. Writing to family, we scribble thumbnail sketches of ourselves, or who

                                                                                                we remember startled us

this morning in the mirror. Hindsight is 20/20, and rearviews are reserved for blurs.

Tome

Forever and the time it took to return. Walking a plank, weather underneath is the same. Smells of salt,

                                                                                                            mermaid foam. Call it

a day with teaspoons of regret and honey. As detritus is detrimental to one's health, hillocks

                                                                                                            fade into sea. Placidity

twirls its thumbs. Flowers begin to flower, not knowing the month. Sundays, all in a row. To

                                                                                                            speak is to beach comb

words.

Philip Kobylarz is a teacher and writer of fiction, poetry, book reviews, and essays. He has worked as a

journalist and film critic for newspapers in Memphis, TN. His work appears in such publications as 

Paris Review, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry series. He is the author of a book of poems 

concerning life in the south of France and a short story collection titled Now Leaving Nowheresville. 

His creative non-fiction collection All Roads Lead from Massilia is forthcoming from Everytime Press 

of Adelaide, Australia and he has a collection forthcoming from Brooklyn’s Lit Riot Press titled 

A Miscellany of Diverse Things. More at: kobylarzauthor.wix.com/pkoby.