Every poem that I post will first be presented on my home page. Afterward, I will move the poems here to serve as a record of my recent work. You’ll notice that a good number of these poems have come as a result of my travels, and sometimes they will relate to a one of my non-fiction pieces as well as some of my photography. Where I think it will help, I will also publish companion pieces with some poems, and this will help to inform the reading of that particular poem. I’m not sure if it is better to read the companion piece before or after you read the poem. After, I think, but you can be the judge of that.
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The Black Water
The oars strum a liquid rhythm
as the canoe whispers
through the black water.
Conversations are hushed –
if at all –
and the voice of the jungle
rises in staccato declarations,
echoing a tale of clouded inhabitants.
A hand-signal from the guide
and all movement ceases, then
in the hush, we hear a cry.
The guide murmurs, “Toucan,”
but it is too distant;
something else has caught his attention.
He points,
and motionless beneath a dead tree
that is propped at an angle above the water,
we see the black caiman.
Very little of the head is visible –
an arc of pebbled rainbow
and a single jewelled eye
that regards us with alien indifference.
Within the canoe,
we are intruders in this world beyond time,
neither predators nor prey,
beneath regard.
Stretching out below the brackish surface,
the cold body of the reptile lies hidden by vegetation.
We pass by,
already forgotten,
but on our memories
this moment has been etched in its precision.
Kenneth D. Reimer
The Sharks
Rhythmic breathing
in an alien world –
raucous bubbles respond to
the slow whisper of inhalation.
Above and below.
Earth and sea.
We lie beneath sixty feet of water,
clutching stone blocks
while silent killers
slide amongst us.
The sharks have come to feed.
Encased in a tunic of mail,
the dive master brandishes
chunks of frozen tuna.
The sharks’ eyes flash white,
and the slick stillness of their passage
erupts into violence.
They tear at the meat.
They snap at the diver’s hands.
And we lie still as death,
close enough to touch,
too near for escape.
The dive ends
and we drift toward the world of light.
Our world
where we are the killers.
Kenneth D. Reimer
Were There Butterflies?
Warm sunlight
hazed in the distance
bakes the stagnant summer air.
Mid-afternoon lethargy
deadens limbs
and brings a forced silence
broken only by muted cries
of pain
and the sluggish buzz
of flies
gross and bloated
that feed off the corpses
stacked by the crematorium
at Dachau.
Kenneth D. Reimer