The Literary Review
PARK
Young children
Jump in and out
Of the sprinkler.
Their bodies and hair
Are wet and their skin
Shines in the Sun.
One day the children
Will grow old
And retire from work.
They will sit
On a park bench
And forget
That they are old,
While the Sun
Glints on the surface
Of a green seesaw
And two children
Climb on it.
- Michael La Bombarda
PATIO
Mourning dove
Perches on the iron railing.
Does it ever lose its balance?
Fall before it opens its feathers
Yet land safely on the ground?
I need to answer these questions
As I’m poised on top of a building.
I’m growing a short dark bill.
My head, though not shrinking,
Feels smaller as it swivels.
My arms turn to wings
Brown, tan, and white
With black spotted feathers
Groomed for my solo flight.
To where? Am I Icarus?
Daedalus has been dead
For a long time. I need to know.
Does the mourning dove
Ever lose its balance?
Because I feel the crash
Of the small squat bird
As if I had attempted
A life-ending flight of my own
Having lost my feathers,
My need to live,
Same as flying.
- Michael La Bombarda
OF BIRDS
Sparrows everywhere.
Sparrows everywhere.
Not a purple finch,
Nor a bluebird.
Poets everywhere.
Poets everywhere.
Am I a purple finch,
Or a bluebird?
I want to fly farther
And longer
Than the other birds
In my flock,
But maybe there is room
For more birds
Of various plumage
On Mount Parnassus.
I shouldn’t
Be so egocentric,
But an oeuvre
Has a missionary’s impact–
I’m out to convert
The nonbelievers
Who don’t like poetry
Or emotions at all.
Mountains are lonely.
There is, after all,
A bit of a blue-white night heron
In everyone.
- Michael La Bombarda
PRAYER
When I think of you,
The Sun beats down
On my neck and face.
And when I want you,
My love, I look into
Your face, and want
To feel your breasts
Against my chest
In a lasting embrace,
Our arms encircling
The people of the world,
The whole human race,
And all war, hatred, disease,
Famine, pestilence, disaster
Gone without a trace.
- Michael La Bombarda
STREET SMARTS
Sitting
On a standpipe,
I see clouds
Shifting overhead.
Near my shoes,
I watch
Streams of feet
With waves of purpose.
It’s nicer to look at feet
Than the masked look of faces.
Faces are lies that dissemble,
Feet unobtrusively walk forward.
I’d rather be a foot than a face.
Feet lead you somewhere.
Faces leave you guessing
What’s behind the topography.
If I knew the answer,
I’d have the key to the human question,
If it were posed.
With feet, you don’t worry.
You know feet are whole.
Feet grow tenacious roots.
There’s no contradicting feet.
Feet have no faces, just soles.
I searched along the newly mopped
Waxed floor for a clear print
Of your knees and crawling palms.
I crucify you so you stay in place.
- Michael La Bombarda
ROOFTOP
Sunflowers rule.
Butterfly bush
And black-eyed Susans,
Prince and princess.
Other potted plants,
Are knee-high
Near the robes
Of royalty.
I feel
Like a bishop
Called to bless
This occasion
With a well-placed
Word or two,
A spoken song,
A poem.
Some poems
End with a punch,
A left, a right,
Then a roundhouse
To the head.
This poem ends
With the weeping
Of a willow.
- Michael La Bombarda