by K.G. Ricci
Hours
They topple in form, boost you
with their comin’ round, urge you
with their slow yet deliberate seconds
mounting. I eat hours for breakfast,
boot them at lunch, smoke them after dinner,
drink them with my bourbon. I rock hours
on the lullaby of night. I row them out on vacation.
When day breaks, I stretch them like a rubber band
that flings forward morning. All day I twirl
the hours like a lasso. I put them in a jar and
shake them. If I’m in a hurry, I drag them behind
me. But if I’m working, I leave them under my desk,
where I touch them with my feet every so often.
Sometimes I forget about them, but not for long.
They are singularly focused, ringed / rigged, like a wrong /
song, like a rhymed time clapping / snapping.
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the Seventh Annual Gival Press Poetry Award and recipient of a 2007 Eric Hoffer Book Award: Notable for Art Category. Her poetry has appeared in journals internationally, including The Bitter Oleander, Cimarron Review, The Cortland Review, Feminist Studies, The Massachusetts Review, and Southern Humanities Review. She lives in New Jersey. Her website is www.donnajgelagotislee.com.
K.G. Ricci is a self-taught NYC artist who has been creating collages for the past seven years. In that time his work has evolved from the larger 24×48 panels to 7×10 books and most recently to a series of 18×24 collages on cardboard titled Incongruities. His work has been in gallery exhibitions throughout the country, and he has appeared in numerous on-line exhibitions. Many of Ken’s most recent “visual stories” have been featured in several literary magazines. Instagram @kennethricci