John Sibley Williams
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The coin in my hand is good
but I’m unable to board.
The doors are open,
steps drawn down to the pavement—
no bar blocking my way
no driver.
The bus crawling so slowly
I could accidentally fall into it,
both
hungry and sated,
waiting for movement
and already moving.
Don’t look up, don’t look up
and over the seats.
What if they are all empty
and still I cannot sit?
What if they are all empty
after I occupy them?
John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, finalist for the Rumi and Pinch Poetry Prizes, and two-time Pushcart nominee. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and publicist for various presses and authors, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. A few previous publishing credits include: Inkwell, Bryant Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and various fiction and poetry anthologies.
“John Sibley Williams is one of my favorite contemporary poets, and it’s with much pleasure that I start the series with his poem. His work brings a magnifying glass to familiar concepts and examines them from unique and intriguing angles. He inhabits the space between the statement and its meaning. His use of precise and effective imagery and his ability to go beyond the imagery are equally impressive. His capability for conceptual work that is not hermetic is uncanny. His work moves and intrigues me.
The ghostly semi-existence manifested by the poem’s narrative voice, so uncertain as to doubt even the narrator’s own physical presence, is an inventive and chilling metaphor for being among thousands, for lives intersecting, but not affecting one another. The fear of looking up and engaging with the world, the fear of the truth, is an inventive clue to the character’s state. There is much more that comes to mind in response to these laconic lines, but I will leave the rest to everyone’s imagination.” — A Molotkov
Next issue features Jon Stone.