Hugh Findlay

Seven Poems

Well so what?

For the feel of it
I sat naked in the rain

But the judge said
I couldn't do it in public

And I said
I couldn't in the house either

So in jail
the roof felt the rain instead

And all night
the roof giggled

From the Convicted to his Accusers

The trees hold their court in wind

The pigeons chortle agreement

And the staleness of the day

before sunset

heightens the echoes of testimony

I miss it already though it is not yet gone

What one may call "living memories"

cycles of nature and greater worlds will dissolve

Not death, it is merely the shedding of skin

My death is a length of rope for you

to measure from

Your law forces its heralded will upon me

But listen, if all things arrive

then they belong

and so too, if they are loved

they need not love

When morning comes, you will be me

5 Socially Aware Haiku

Prisoner

Shoulder to shoulder

Walking squares in the jail yard

Turning right, slowly

Place

Immigrant worker

Picking fruit in August sun—

Ripening country

Song

Cricket in a cage

Home in a home all alone

Singing tears for love

Danger

Dangerous anger

Spilling out into the world —

Oval Office fears

Homies

Delivery man,

Pizza dude, Uber guy, super’...

Lady mailboxer!

Hugh Findlay lives in Durham, NC, and would rather be caught fishing. He drives a little red MG, throws darts on Tuesdays, reads and writes a lot, dabbles in photography and makes a pretty good gumbo. His work has most recently been published in The Dominion Review, Literary Accents, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Bangalore Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, Wanderlust, Montana Mouthful, and Dream Noir.