A Poetry Showcase from Ethan McGuire

Mother Charity
first published in Foundling House

Charity, great love,
is the love of my mother.
Agape. Selfless.

ἀγάπη
Worlds forever change.
Situations are as tides.
My mother is constant.

ἔρως
Eros, romantic,
is a love of many lusts.
Temporal pleasures. Venus.

στοργή
Storge, natural,
widely diffused, emotive,
finds dependency.

φιλία
Philia, the chosen
love, the least gregarious,
fluctuates with pride.

Eros, storge, philia—
good but not self-sufficient—
seek a foundation.

The politician
persuades us with certain truths.
He is but white noise.

The billionaire provides
sacrifices for the poor,
yet he lacks charity.
He gives for himself.

My mother is charity.
She never wavers or drifts
away from paths clear to her.
All the other kinds of loves
I have found are dim.

Absence of Desire
first published in Better Than Starbucks

Incredibly tired.
Painfully far beyond strained.
Absence of desire.

Fields of intense drought
amidst acres of plenty.
Absence of desire.

Stark, spiderweb limbs,
leafless, sporting icicles.
Absence of desire.

Worn, run, overwrought;
unplowed, never left fallow.
Lifeless until Spring.


Valentine Winter

White-woven water falls
softly, steadily, outside
my window, drifting across
a laid-bare, lonely window pane.

A man and a woman—
sitting at their kitchen table
drinking hot, black coffee,
freshly ground and brewed—
say, “Your way is my way,
and your tears are my tears,”
as they reach across the table
carefully toward each other.

Staring across morning valleys
from hilltop vantage points,
I see a path upon which
a figure roams wandering, one.

Even still, without reprieve,
white-woven water falls
steadily, softly, outside
my window, drifting across
a lonely, laid-bare window pane.

Your way works better.
I can hardly deny it.
Let me leave with you.


Red Christmas Kettles

I turn my collar up against my town,
thrust icy fingers deep into my jeans,
and shrug my jacket tighter ‘round my frame.

I hunch my shoulders then resign myself
to plunge into the changing winter’s fog
and stride the dirty streets, averting eyes.

I turn my troubled thoughts against my town,
until Salvation Army Santas stand
to ring their bells and shiver through their smiles.


Bio: Ethan McGuire works by day as a healthcare information technology professional and by night as a writer, whose poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Better than Starbucks, The Dark Sire, The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, New Verse News, The Poetry Pea, and Vita Brevis, among others. His debut poetry collection, Apocalypse Dance, releases through BSC Publishing in the Summer of 2022. Ethan McGuire, his wife, and their new daughter live in the Florida Panhandle near the Gulf of Mexico. You may connect with Ethan on Twitter @AHeavyMetalPen or at TheFlummoxed.com.
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