LatinosUSA

Author Synopsis

Every poem is a journey and every journey, a poem. The poems in Shelter In Place all begin with a journey to places of the heart and mind.  Shelter In Place, as the title implies, is a collection of poems reflecting on finding a place of safety and acceptance while grappling with societal and personal issues of dissension, alienation, and assimilating into one’s personal strength and identity. It is also a book of transitions. The poet’s voice visits all of the stages of life—wanderer, partner, mother, lover, teacher, student—and all the epiphanies that come between.  Whether it be watching a father and son playing ball, or watching my partner reach for the last mango in the fridge, or witnessing displacement of war torn peoples –the journeys we take in life, the journeys and the destinations we reach all can be the making of a poem, and these poems, the making of this book, Shelter In Place. 

Sample Poems

Shelter in Place

The air is rife with sirens
and an entire city
is told to shelter in place
a place called home,
which unravels in all of its definitions.
Harbor, haven, sanctum,
lose meaning as one looks for safety,
which is buried with hope
for any kind of humanity,
which has left the building
along with those garnered wishes
to find ourselves tracing a map,
which avoids those rugged routes
that lead to madness and violence.
We can only sketch the way
toward a mother’s loving cry
directions home to a simple hug—that kind of shelter.

~~

Options

In the beginning,
we had time to tally
who spited, who hurt,
who forgave first.

We could nurse our anger
for weeks turning it into a game,
until one of us cried «Uncle»

We bullied time thinking
it would never fight back,
but now time wins and winds
around us with an aging wisdom.

It hardly matters who dirtied
the new white towels,
forgot to turn off the lights,
lock the back gate,
ate the last poppy seed muffin,
broke the porcelain coffee mug,
or refused to kill the spider.

One of us will always be left
hungry, in the dark, afraid
of things that crawl into open entryways.

In our waning days together,
we can no longer waste
the time that stretches between us.

Our history is branded by the flames we create.
We can choose to stay in the pan, or jump into the fire.

Paperback Purchase Link

https://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/jkl/KUNTZ_PLACE.html#gsc.tab=0