Christopher Kain

Christopher Kain

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I discovered poetry at Northampton's Haymarket Cafe in 1992 and graduated from UMass in Amherst a year after that. I continued reading poetry in Cincinnati, OH then in Washington, DC, where I was anthologized in The Federal Poet, and the Alexandria Live Poets Society. In Connecticut, I read and featured at various venues and published a book of my work. In Boston, I featured at the Cantab's Third Rail and completed my Master's degree in Library Science from Simmons College. I hope to have a new book available for the reading entitled "homefront." here's some poems from that collection:

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the jukebox glow

reflects in his glasses

in his fist he fingers

quarters--collects a prayer

the barroom silence

is loud with drowned desire

until Sinatra

The Best Is Yet to Come

some woozy heads turn

to see him shuffle back

to his stool--a few extra steps

with an idea of rhythm

the quarters that sleep

in the pockets of old men

are keys to forgotten dreams

the heart’s currency

that still wants to sing

*****

autumn your tweeds

are fraying at the edges

autumn you smell

of earth & cold

only the colors of your eyes

burn

autumn your heart

is full of dead leaves

that fall around us

like poems

autumn you walk

slowly toward your

snow-covered grave

dragging all that is beauty

& locking the door

behind you

******

your fingers fumble

for something familiar

to hold on to

you discover

the circumference

of her

a body moves differently

when accompanied

almost an innocence

as you dance again

with half-attempted grace

all the hope you can afford

& all your insecurity forces

massed at the border