Driftwood pleasingly arranged on beach

POEMS BY GEORGE PAYNE: I Have Something You Want to Hear, Your Hair Glowed and more

I Have Something You Want to Hear

I have been ripped apart
I have been torn apart
I am a good poet
I have been embarrassed and 
shunned
I have been treated like a joke
and turned down more times
then I can count; I have been zero
in the eyes of teachers and editors,
I have been nothing without the choice
to care. I am a poet. Read my work. 
You will see. I am a poet. 

On The Corner

of Garson and Main,
where he comes 
up to me every time,
asking if I will pay for 
his addiction. I do
every time, without
giving him a single dime

We shop at the same store 
after all.

Yeast

a living organism 
that feeds on fermentable
sugars

transforming them
to beverage alcohol
and congeners

carbon dioxide and heat
and also the feeling I get
in the pit of my gut 

when we hear each other’s
chests, while watching a movie 
on the couch 

You Finished

my sentences with notes
of barley, water and time 
lingering on
The way a damn good
Kentucky bourbon
says goodbye 

Your Hair Glowed

in the moonlight 
as a Glencairn 
would, filled 
with Irish whiskey
the colour of freshly
minted copper

Bound

by bonds for family 
and the land they killed
for, yet here to leave 
at any moment—without
a trace; I was born 
on the borders of clouds, missing 
everything that touches the Earth.

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image: George Payne

  1. I tell you, George:
    I turned to your poems seeing the headline about someone’s hair glowing.
    A touch of synchronicity. I work with preschool children. Yesterday, they were playing with our “pretend beauty shop” set (complete with “blow-dryer” with a real battery, that makes the sounds!) and one of the little attendants said, “I’m putting glitter in your hair! 🙂

    But I was happy to get here, to your page!
    That first poem is a stunner, to me!
    The way it opens:
    “I have been ripped apart
    I have been torn apart
    I am a good poet.”
    And I think you repeat that sentence “I am a good poet” 3 times.
    THAT’S conficence! Hard-won!

    You know, since there is no limit to the size of our letter-comments here, I’m going to paste in a poem by an Australian poet I love, named Francis Brabazon…his definition of a poet, which reminds me of yours.
    This is simply titled “Ghazal 14″ in his book that is titled IN DUST I SING.

    A poet is a man condemned to exile
    Because within his heart there is no guile;

    A philosopher without a system’s rule
    Having mastered and transcended every school.

    A poet is an old man in a child,
    Wise to the world yet easily beguiled;

    He goes to bed cold sober every night
    And wakes dead drunk to welcome morning’s light.

    A poet is a ruin over treasure,
    A deep ocean that none but God can measure;

    He eats with dogs, his pillow is a stone,
    He swings on gates of tide, and tunes bees’ drone.

    A poet is a stronghold you can trust.
    A poet is a bit of singing dust. ”

    ***
    your other poems are strong too, I felt, George.
    I can TASTE that Kentucky bourbon (and I HATE the taste of hard liquor! 🙂 )

    Your description of yourself in “Bound” reminds me of a line I wrote a couple decades ago, something like “My chart is all Fire and Air, so I live in quest of Water and Earth.”

    Thanks George!
    See you next time maybe 🙂

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