Circling Venice

I am excited to announce the publication of my first collection of poems, "Circling Venice."

Here is the marketing blurb ...

A stunning first book from Frank Kearns. A private life revealed in quick snapshots that mirror adolescent America’s mythic migration westward in the 70’s. His long time west coast home differs from the places where he began, changed by one simple act of will: “Cars were the way out…I started the car.”

Kearns writes with a laconic Yankee directness of his journey, and in his orbiting perspective he gives us stops in time and stops in places. “Always the woods,” he says of his New England childhood, “hilly, laced with decaying stone walls, glades of sunshine, pockets of cool cool dark.” Once in the Venice of “the people’s parks and food co-ops,” the unexpected courtship of a muse illuminates his poems.

If you are curious, previews are available on Amazon.com ... but contact me and I will make sure you get a copy!

http://www.amazon.com/Circling-Venice-Poems-Frank-Kearns/dp/1893670937/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359314170&sr=8-1&keywords=circling+venice+frank+kearns

You and I Walking

You were re-assembling
the building blocks,
throwing off the mood of troubled youth,
climbing out of scrimping two-job
low rent downtown apartments.

I was stepping out of
the skin of the classroom boy,
reborn to the sun in the garden,
community food banks, anti-war marches
and the smell of machine shop oil.

We shared the wonder of
warm air on a summer night,
strong coffee and alcohol
and the sound of the blues guitar
bending that high slow note
‘till our souls took flight.

I looked for nothing
beyond the spell
but in brief instants saw
as the kitchen window
set your red bandanna
golden hair aglow
a long road
and in the distance
you and I
walking


Copyright © 2011 Frank Kearns