Jack Spicer said: “Poems should echo and re-echo against each other…They cannot live alone any more than we can.”

Eric Rensberger is originally from Elkhart County in northern Indiana, but he has lived in southern Indiana since 1974, mainly in Bloomington. His work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. His chapbooks include, amongst other titles, Letters, Standing Where Something Did, and Blank of Blanks, and he has indulged in more fugitive forms of publication such as posting poems anonymously on public kiosks, streetlamp poles, and bulletin boards in restaurants. He is a convinced and persistent self-publisher. His collected works can be found at ericrensbergerpoetry.net, which is home to his major work, the ongoing chronological series Account of My Days, at present consisting of more than 1,000 poems.

Welcome to the Poets Weave, I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Eric, what poems have you brought for us today?

END OF THE DAY

ten o'clock
the tree frogs are getting louder
only a few fireflies are out
the highway speaks for itself
in a continuous buzz
people traveling through the night
are leaving behind the roar of their departure

seven hours sleep I had today
seven hours work
the other ten I hardly noticed

the most distant and the nearest
thing I hear is silence
it surrounds the highway noise
and the tree frogs' chatter
you can hear it between heartbeats
a vast and intimate silence

may tonight's hours pass without interference
and all the departures go smoothly
may my dreams dissolve my worries
and dawn mark me as one of its new things

10/17/18

all travelers tonight
whether the wind slows or speeds you
whether you are returning to or going farther from home
whether you watch or turn away

that house you are passing is mine
and inside it I patiently name
all the gods I can remember
and wait to see if any still speaks

there is an act of looking I can only do from a distance
and I want someone to look that way at me
from a distance each of us is fit
to a moment and a place worth knowing

and from that place believing in fate
and believing that fate can change
are the same belief the one that launches prayers
with a speed like light glancing off water

AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOL. VI

night stops breathing
then she starts up again

she is bothered by me
by having to look after
what I have given up to her

P for instance
his last moment spent
fighting a cold hard rain
for control of his motorcycle
and losing
laying it down in front of a semi
unable to swerve
(poor driver)

or D who finally realized
what all his friends and family knew
his cult leader was a liar
he'd wasted his gift for belief
humiliating
hung himself in his father's garage

night looks after them
and I look up at the night
have I participated in lies?
have I pushed my luck?
obviously so but

without serious consequence up to now
which leaves me as one of the lucky bereft
here to bother the night
who should be used to it by now

OLD GUY OBSERVATION

I used to say back when

before I had much back when
to talk about

then later I said later on
as that became a diminishing category

I say now now

as though I thought
I was there

You've been listening to the poetry of Eric Rensberger on the Poets Weave, I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.