Poetry by Eugene O’Connor
Dawn broke not early
but as usual, though the sun
will not shine today.
Some things merely
are unwilling to shine,
to glow, to experience
anything but hoary light
filtered through clouds
over gray water. But enough
for Matisse to have worked
day after day for years
painting the blocky spires
of Notre Dame, so recognizable
in the same foggy outline, each
of a slightly different color
as the day’s light changed
or else the artist’s vision
seemed to fail, but for
an inner sight or just a glimmer
of something else before night fell
which would scarcely be relieved
by the feeble street lamps
to create a different light.
Eugene O’Connor lives with his husband in Columbus, Ohio. His poems have appeared in the arlington literary journal, The Avocet, The Comstock Review, Connecticut River Review, Mead, OASIS Journal, Poetry Pacific, Pudding Magazine, and elsewhere. His chapbook “Wanderer at the World’s Edge” was published by Blue Light Press in 2022.
