Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica

Mike Dillon

He deconstructs his poems
into broken churches.
He wants to stand astride
a fresh pile of written rubble
and rub death into his eyes
where roses should blow.
As for churches: a void trapped
in stone, he says. That’s all.
And so, he is deaf to the whisper
of eternity in the empty nave:
“Be not afraid.” And he is sore afraid,
whose poems are born of his flinching
to the sound of crashing glass and stone.
And so, he mines and assays
each twitch of his exposed, wind-chafed
nerves wriggling for the lack
of the love they seek
as he dresses each morning
in the skeletal bone light
of his poetic art
while the roses blow in the light

for those with eyes that would see.

---

Mike Dillon
Poet

Mike lives in Indianola, Washington, a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. His poetry has appeared in Dappled Things, St. Austin Review, The Galway Review, Miramar and numerous other publications in this country and abroad. His most recent book of poems is a chapbook, The Return, from Finishing Line Press (2021).

Photography by Reuben Rohard