Stewart Florsheim
Stewart Florsheim is an award-winning poet whose work has been published in many magazines and anthologies. His most recent collection is The Short Fall From Grace, published by Blue Light Press and winner of the 2005 Blue Light Book Award.


The Short Fall From Grace

There is a special resonance and poignancy in Stewart Florsheim's poems. Although they may speak matter-of-factly about the world and about art itself, they manage with great subtlety to explore well below the surface of our lives. These are poems to handle with care, as they have been sharpened with the precise blade of truth.
--Elizabeth Rosner, The Speed of Light



The Way

 

 

The dog with cancer lies on the couch as the family

has dinner. The girls can’t stop talking about

their plans for the weekend—parties, a concert with

The Lovemakers—the kids they like and dislike.

Father insists they say something positive

about the kids they don’t like, how the traits

we don’t care for in others reflect back

on ourselves. Someone knocks on the door

but the dog does not bark.

 

***

A woman boards MUNI and yells at the driver

when he asks for proof of her handicap.

I don’t need to do shit for you white people anymore.

Have one son and he’s serving your fucking Navy

in Iraq. Fucking shit. You think you rule the world.

Can’t you see I’m limping. Hit by a car when I cross

Mission. White car. Trash has no insurance.

Everyone on the bus is quiet. A man flips

the page of his Chronicle and everyone turns.

 

***

In the Temple of the Eight Immortals a man

walks through halls filled with patchouli incense,

stops in front of a bronze Buddha-like god,

red lips a reluctant smile. Nearby a priest chants

from the Tao Te Ching, each breath a string

of musical notes. The man leaves and comes back

with a strip of paper: Chinese characters that resemble

a couple embracing, two people walking, a dancer. 

The man hands the strip to the priest and begins to weep.




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