Verdad Magazine Volume 30
Spring 2021, Volume 30
Poetry by Austin Veldman
After Sleep, Before Work, During Coffee
There is something artistic about how the light
comes in through the kitchen, floorboards turned
golden, defying the shadow. But I don’t tell
you this. I don’t say anything of what I see, not
yet. These fragments of the world are frivolous
to your deep worry, the night shift under your eyes
like the bags of tea we tried for sleep-aid. You lift
the coffee to your lips, remembering bloodwork at 9,
our son still sleeping and needing to eat and be changed,
your missing driver’s license, as if the world
constantly asks who are you? until it is found,
until we find a meaning for all of this
beyond what can be called artistic. What I mean is
sometimes even those who will not betray reason
want to talk to God, need more than the whisper
of hope that is light coming out of the kitchen.
Night Without Stars
Walking down Colfax, a line
of vehicles wait for the apocalypse
exhaust plumes like last exhales
rising to meet the silent gods
of all our childhoods. I’ve got nothing
to do and it’s killing me. Above, the night
without stars covers all of Indiana
in the same darkness that waits between
galaxies. In the end what will the last
of us think? A back alley says nothing except
to echo some car horn’s lonely three-beep
rhythm from the next street over. Dark spots
where no stars have wandered. And I wonder
who the last person to think of me was
and if it was some sort of romance.
BIO: Austin Veldman is poet, editor, and songwriter from South Bend, Indiana. His poetry has recently appeared in Atlanta Review, Bateau, The Slag Review, Artifact Nouveau, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Twyckenham Notes, an online literary magazine that was the recipient of a 2020 Pushcart and a finalist for a Firecracker Award for Best Debut Magazine. He holds a BA and MA in English from Indiana University South Bend, where he is an Adjunct Professor of English teaching poetry. He works in management at an automotive recycling facility and lives in Northern Indiana with his wife and two sons.