Photography © Jennifer Matthews

 

Zeitgeist or Other Spectres Raised?

I thank sheltered naivety,
quite unaware of those who loved;
with other frame I could, seduced,
but knew not signals of approach.
If recognised, would I engage,
and lose estate, family tree?

I now would then have sympathised,
that key stage age when youth to man;
consider compact as devised,
though robbed of wife through to grandkids.
No would-be partners are about,
unless it’s chicken, my regard.

For me, I’m grateful for that cage,
though not for others vilified;
I guess my spectrum, by degrees
is broader than those fellows, queers.
My compass reading poorly trained
as needle swings, magnetic fields.

So I, by fortune, can sustain
my family without due strife,
yet wonder, of that other age,
where zeitgeist might have landed me.
So now I’m left, what might have been –
love ending without progeny?

 

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including Oddball. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Poet/Photographer Jennifer Matthews’ poetry has been published in Nepal by Pen Himalaya and locally by the Wilderness Retreat Writers Organization, Midway Journal, The Somerville Times, Ibbetson Street Press and Boston Girl Guide. Jennifer was nominated for a poetry award by the Cambridge Arts Council for her book of poetry Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors. Her songs have been released nationally and internationally and her photography has been used as covers for a number of Ibbetson Street Press poetry books and has been exhibited at The Middle East Restaurant, 1369 Coffeehouses, Sound Bites Restaurant in Somerville and McLean Hospital.