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May 2017
Tom Montag
tmmontag@centurylink.net
Poetry is a lonely business, but I have a friend who plays guitar, and when I play bass with him, I find community. My most recent book is In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013 and I've had recent poems in Hummingbird, Atticus Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and other literary magazines.  I'm honored to serve as managing editor of the Lorine Niedecker Monograph Series, What Region? I blog as The Middlewesterner (www.middlewesterner.com), and have put up at least five little poems a week since mid-2008.​

OLD MUSICIANS

          in the blue
darkness, cold,
          aged, aching.
Just our
          instruments
and us
          speaking for
silence.
          There's nothing
to do but
          do it, play
the only
          song there is.
We play it
          all night long.

- for Doug Burk




EVENING


When the sky
lets down long light

upon the earth
this evening,

the darkness
fills with silence,

with stars where
hope resides.





DEEP IN THE NIGHT


crossing in front of us as
silent as death's own sister

grey wings and talons and
eyes that see what little

we know of God, the owl.





TRUTH


The sky says
blue.

The poet has
nothing else

to offer.





EMPTINESS


is the beginning. Then
it must be beautiful.

© 2017 Tom Montag
Editor's Note:  If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF
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