Thursday, June 22, 2023

GAS Featured Poet: William Waters


William Waters is an associate professor, in the Department of English at the University of Houston Downtown. Along with Sonja Foss, he is coauthor of Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation. His research and teaching interests are in writing theory and modern grammar.

 


Ezra

For Burt Hatlen


After all that thunder,

You remained


Still:

A room after


Mozart ceased;

A room still


Without distraction;

A space


Filled

With shadows.




I think of you


I think of you

though this hasn’t happened--

thirty-five,

alcoholic, and alone.


I think of you

closed

in a room

in the

city


--tugging hard

a beer. -- turning

back again


to your father,

too drunk to get out

of the flames.  Identified

by teeth.  Your mother, 

a picture taken

before you learned

to walk. -- your

past.


I think of you, 

almost empty,

pushing hard

the typewriter

keys...


your last effort

an explanation.




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