three poems

by paul bergstraesser

On Being Idle

I wish for nothing
other than this laziness:
my brain slouches against
the inside of my forehead,
the gray skies won’t decide
on black or white, even Hell
is bored of anger.

It’s nothing new. My face
keeps reading while my
eyes stopped long ago
and the books daydream
other stories.

So much for the Grand Tour:
debauchery is sleeping
late, carousing’s in the
field, and the only way to
prove faith is to separate God
from belief, a task for another
day.

Really, which of the four seasons
is unserious? Which part of an
hour? I’ve found that every crumb
of food passing my lips is
sincere in its mission.

This morning, I resolved to amputate
each hair on my head with a snip.
What a relief to know that strangers
will no longer be jealous of me.

One Afternoon

Fish are mostly water
she said as we lay
on our backs in a lawn,
staring hard, trying to
pinpoint the highest flyer,
both of us thinking
birds are almost sky.

The End of Extinction

this starts

over here, where patience isn’t.


Ferlinghetti’s still alive, back here.

no way to fit in anything lavender


sorry I even mentioned it.


you’d be surprised at the number of poems I’ve never written


like this one

and this one


don’t forget me.


each morning I drove my son to the water


Lake Michigan with a new chop each day


color, too


dropped him off

he never drowned


not in the cards.


a retired couple from Holland strikes up a conversation


on a rooftop deck in Zermatt

I don’t see myself in them

down the line


just wish that nobody was ever Dutch


or on vacation.



for the longest time I was convinced that my feet


were a nest of bones



and I resolved to stay inside forever


age progression found me smiling and confident.



today

I hang the last of the blue whales


in the great halls of the world


everything I’ve ever articulated in thought or speech



has come true.

Paul Bergstraesser’s poems have been published in Hole in the Head Review and Fleas on the Dog and he has work forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry. His prose has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, The Barcelona Review and The Portland Review, among others. He was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2012 and teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Wyoming. 

Paul donated to the United Way of Albany County (WY).