I WISH FOR THE STARS
I wish for the stars,
The stars hanging in your heart.
I wish for the silence,
The silence of your glance.
I want you in my arms,
Not for my wandering.
I will stay stone awed
By your place in my bosom.
I weep for your happiness,
Under midnight's raucous cloak.
I fly in the face of you,
In love with the smoke rings.
I wish for the stars,
That you sprinkle in my dreams.
I wish for the fragrance,
Of all my life in you.
-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2026
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONSTELLATIONS
Where exactly is it we go when we die
Does the soul linger on, hovering above the operating table
The hospice room, the car crash,
The slashing of the knife, the crack of the pistol,
Cognizant of its surroundings?
Does the spirit stay behind to comfort the mourners.
Counseling them in their abject grief
Hoping to provide a little succor or sustenance?
Or does the spirit simply fly away.
Knowing it is time,
Saying so long and farewell
Disappearing into the ether or blinding white light,
With loved ones who have gone before
Inviting them to a fine initiation banquet
In a land where the streets are paved with gold?
Perhaps the spirit transmigrates into another corporal form,
Eager to perfect itself with another life, another body
Fervently hoping for the grace to finally get it right.
Or perhaps the dead hang out with the 88 constellations
That hang high in the heavens, sometimes hard to see,
Obscured by clouds or the smog of our cities
Like Orion The Hunter, Andromeda, Queen of Ethiopia
Cancer the Crab, Scorpio the Scorpion, and Pisces the Fish
Or one of the other 83 that reside in that realm
Perhaps the dead look down at us from the vastness of space.
Mystical stars, ensconced in a clear autumn sky.
-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2025
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SHOOTING STARS
I see stars erupting, boy
When I look and watch your lips quake.
Hoping your heart to soar, in mystic configurations
When your flesh is hot upon me.
I see moons floating
Combustion ignites our souls
Fusing them into one entity
We float together
Erotic astronauts
Naked to the human eye.
Boy, you defy my sense of balance
You defy gravity
Send me reeling with no reason
Into the unfolding of the seasons
And all their revelations that somehow always sing your name
Who would blame ua
If we mounted shooting stars
And rode them past imagination
-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2024
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
