I Still Wait for You
Poetry Collection and Photos By Bill Palmer
Storms On The Horizon
No matter what happens
No matter how hard the winds blow
The morning comes with the birdsongs
And the mesquites stand
To meet the day again
Lightning all night
In my old heart
Dark clouds to the west
Hanging like black wings
In the dark
Backlit in brief flashes by the electricity
That keeps me alive
In The Dark
Many years ago
Lifetimes perhaps
I waited in the grove
After midnight
For her to come to me
I watched through the dark
Down the dirt path
Barefoot and shirtless
Smoking
As if this night
Was the last chance
We’d ever have
Last Kiss
I had that dream again
We laid curled
In the gray darkness
No one around
Alone
She was perfectly framed
By the night around her
My head in her lap
Her hands cupping my face
And she leaned down slow
To kiss me
And her lips
And her tongue
Fresh with the words
I love you
Touched mine
Settler
He received her letter
Opened it like a gift
Carefully
As not to tear anything
Sitting behind the wheel
Rolling a smoke
Engine warming...
She said she’d like to see him
If he would come
So many miles
So many years
So many dreams of her
He looked
In the Rearview
At his graying beard
And wrinkled brow
Lit his smoke
And went on to work
Gentle Song
After the blaze
We gathered
And moved gently
Through the smoldering remains
The women held up their skirts
Not to touch the ground
And the men spit tobacco juice
That sizzled
I reached down
And swept ash away
From the little metal box
That you gave me
Under the pines, back east
Still unopened
With our secret safe
Inside
Summertime Song
Give me miles
Of dirt road
Cold ale between my thighs
And I might just
Take over the world
What will I do with it?
I’ll take it back
To where it came from
Give it a ride in my old truck
I’ll take it to the edge of time
Take it fishing
Buy it a beer
Set it free
Find my true love
Wrapped in its wings
And lay down with her there
At the end of the road
Old Bones
I put my fingers in the dirt
Digging handfuls
Til they bled
Sweating in the last of the day
Until the sun set
And I found the memory
Of my love for her
There
The Keeper
Let go
She said
And you can keep me
So I did
And here she is
A decade later
Bill Palmer is a songwriter, record producer, and poet who splits his time between Terlingua, TX and Santa Fe, NM. He was raised in Red Springs, TX, near Tyler, and attended the University Of Texas at Austin. He is married to singer-songwriter Stephanie Hatfield, and they have two grown children. He regularly plays at the local spots around the Big Bend region and has recently been producing records in and around Terlingua for local and traveling artists. In September 2019, while in Colombia without a guitar to play, he began writing poetry and made a deal with himself to write at least one poem per day and release it into the world, accompanied by a photo that suits the poem. You can find Bill's music on Spotify and the links below:
