Jonathan Hayes: California Poets Part 8, Three Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Jonathan Hayes
Three Poems
Oakland
An autumn more like summer
— leaves, determined to fall
An Autumn Storm and Our Thatched Roof
Reading Du Fu, immersed in his wanderings and hardships
within the worn book and faded paper from the library
The poem begins “Howling madly” as a storm carries away his thatched roof
while the local boys take advantage of his “weak old age” helping themselves
to his thatch and running off “into the bamboo grove”
Following these stanzas down the page, the poem disappears unfinished
with the next page torn out from the book: missing
I too, sigh along with Du Fu
Truth and Beauty
The children in Chinatown
standing on the sidewalk
and holding little hands.
Their eyes sparkle and faces radiate
while they giggle and sing,
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”
Author Bio:
Jonathan Hayes has edited and published Over the Transom a Bay Area literary journal for the past twenty-seven years. He has taught poetry and published booklets for children in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. His most recent publication is Ghetto Sunshine & Other Poems 1997-2023, Mel C. Thompson Publishing, California, 2024. He lives with his wife in Oakland, California.
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