L. Ward Abel

 

Lloyd Nolan

I have become
the Lloyd Nolan character
from "Hannah and
Her Sisters"
at the piano
drink nearby bewitched
bewildered notes playing
the pedal lifted then
dropped reverb from wood
alive long after the key
memories in full distortion
but life at the moment
golden.

Thermals

There’s a sense of air rising
pulled from the lungs
of branches and clearings
and grottos and leaves and houses.

Steam has gotten into the room,
it gathers
it billows.  When I open
the window

it rains.  My soul is
on the breakfast plate for all to see.
The radio is almost
on a station.

A great hawk
frozen brownish white chest
caked in water
stares from the yard.

From high places
comes humility, from thermals
come the showers
that follow darker things.

CP

Poet, composer of music, lawyer, aspiring teacher and spoken-word performer, L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia and has published widely. He was nominated for “Best of the Web” by Dead Mule and Northville Review. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006), The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008), and the forthcoming American Bruise (Parallel Press).