"I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms"
----Wallace Stevens
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird"
J. Patrick Lewis
J. Patrick Lewis's work has appeared in Gettysburg
Review,New England Review, Kansas Quarterly, Seneca Review, Santa Barbara
Review, Mudfish, new renaissance, BarefootMuse, Able Muse, The New
Formalist, Contemporary Rhyme--and he has published nearly one
hundred verses in Light Quarterly! His work includes 57
children's picture/poetry books with Knopf, Atheneum,
Harcourt, Dial,
Little, Brown, National Geographic, DK Ink, Chronicle, Scholastic and
other publishing houses.
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J. Patrick Lewis
The School Custodian
I’ve seen them come and go for forty years—
The jocks, the brains, the show-offs and the shy.
They hang around my room, I can’t say why.
It could be that I represent their fears
And frailties so vulnerable to harm.
They ask me things, like Tell us, Mr. V.,
About the time you were a refugee.
Where did you get the numbers on your arm?
And I describe it all—or some of it.
The curiosity of easy youth
Is trumped by innocence. For them, the truth
Attends to what is often counterfeit.
And then there is the ringing of the bell:
They’ve heard about as much as I can tell.
www.lucidrhythms.com
© 2007 David Landrum