https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
http://offcourse.org
ISSN 1556-4975
Published by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg since 1998
Poems by Tim Suermondt
SEARCHING AWAY
In a somewhat diffuse manner
which provides for the charm
of anything being found
like poking in the dark
with a dowsing rod and striking
the hull of a lovely sampan.
A hint, a hope, a dream,
the lists of the never ending
covering every human being
that ever was, will ever be
like medieval armies pouring
over a castle’s walls to conquer
the everlastings waiting patiently
in the courtyard of magnificence.
ANOTHER PORTRAIT
in love whenever women fed me welcomeness
—Antonio Machado
In those days
how could either of us have said no?
We realized the welcome couldn’t last
but as long as it did it was paradise—nothing
wrong with ourselves and the world.
At the precise moment it ended we grabbed
our belongings, kissed and went separate ways—
so in love that some of the trees danced around
us, in exaltation.
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems “A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World” will be forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2021. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Offcourse Literary Journal, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.