Foot of the Lake Poetry Collective

Patrick Moran is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His poems, translations and essays have been published in a variety of publication which include The Boston Review, Prairie Schooner, The New Republic, and Quarterly West. His manuscript, “Tell a Pitiful Story” uses the fory-five standard symbols and signs that hobos used to communicate with each other. The poems are meditations on the transient nature of hobo life, but also a lens through which our modern world is examined. He is currently an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He lives in Fort Atkinson with his wife, the painter, Bethann Handzlik, and their three children.

a kind lady lives here

and next to her
lives another kind lady
a jolly woman
who wants a husband
the way some people want to die

.

doubtful

this is the horizon
from which nothing returns
do you recognize
its unholy edge

the problem is simple
it could be miles away
perhaps more
or it could be at arm’s length

look up from the road
see the pilgrims disappear
see the forsaken ones
see the brow of the storm

turn a slow circle
the horizon is unbroken
no matter where you go
it is waiting

.

okay alright

look at it from the angle
that will reveal as much
of the truth that you can take
it’s about saying the words
and believing them so
what happens next will not
be too painful or pleasant
you can’t say this too early
you need to have failed
for it to have any meaning
your despair has to have
been like a bridge on fire
then blackened and
wandering among the ashes
you say it and you believe
because there’s no choice
and nothing else to say

.

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