Sample Poems by Eve Wood
The Man Who Stole The World, Then Gave It Back Because He Had Everything
A man whose hands construct invisible circles on the wind,
whose breath is the firmament
on which his voice is born --
this man stole the world,
then gave it back again
because he had everything.
Unable to part with it all at once,
he gave it back in stages --
the deserts first because they bored him most,
then the hills stretched out like an echo repeated for miles.
Then the ocean, groundless soup,
the helpless expanse of shore,
how it appears always to be wanting.
At peace in this silence, the whispered coursing
of his blood, he no longer felt the need
for movement, color, sex,
the evocations of the living world.
He gave it all back,
except for one moment,
a brief hesitation.
This he could not part with --
not because it was beautiful,
not because it filled him,
but because it asked nothing
and left him wanting more.
Half Moon
Tonight the moon averts its face
as though turning to call somone's name
across the sky, rally the planets
to larger hope.
What is left behind for me to see
is more than half what I expected
like opening a book to discover
the shadow of a spider
pressed into the paper,
and when I put the book down
and walk away,
I know I will never turn to that page again,
yet strangely my life is richer.
Still, the moon continues waiting,
a crescent,
a slender patience in the sky.
Perhaps one day I'll be standing,
unannounced to myself, on a corner,
and I'll look up,
expecting a timorous moon, in profile,
only to find it full-faced,
not ashamed to know me.