In the Place of Cold Doors

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cold doors


In the Place of Cold Doors

We have a word for everything,
or seven for nothing. Soon

you’ll enter and I’ll talk
on the other side,

watch for signs in every
dropped crumb,

every nailhead and
embedded phrase remembered

in another’s voice. The light
will dim and I’ll look for rain and

go on speaking. My words will wander
unnoticed. You hear only yesterday.

 

“In the Place of Cold Doors” first appeared in Gossamer: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry, published by Kindle Magazine in Kolkata, India. I was thrilled to have several poems included in the anthology.

nailhead

62 thoughts on “In the Place of Cold Doors”

  7. Yes Indeed! A fantastic play on words with nailheads in the voice…Man you know it as a place of death, I as a place of survival and fitness takes its place in it…..fitness to survive, not win.

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  10. That lead photo is so perfect for this poem. It could be a hospital or an asylum or . . . let your imagination roam a bit. Having spent many years in the health field, I am very familiar with what these haunting words mean. Once again, Bob, you have hit the center of your target.

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  14. I always read your work aloud a couple of times. It’s like rolling the wine around in my mouth to get all the nuances out of it/ looking at the first picture, seeing a hospital corridor, and reading the words for the second time it hit me how perfectly this described my father’s experience with the diagnosis of my mother’s Alzheimers disease. “we have a word for everything” “watch for signs in every dropped crumb’ “you hear only yesterday”. Bloody uncanny but very touching.

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  22. Pingback: In the Place of Cold Doors – WRITING IZ~ THE IZZY STORY

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