Krapp's Last Tape by Doug Holder

          Based on a play by Samuel Beckett

In the end
I became
what was
once a
subject
of my fascination.

An old man
praying over
a tape recorder
of memories,
wincing at
his youthful
pomposity.

In some
dark, dank
room
constantly
trying to edit
the mournful dirge
of things
unsaid,
undone.

To rewind,
to hover
under the sliver
of light
from the disrepair
of a lamp...
to listen
again and again
to that time
she came
to me--
smiled...

and her eyes
finally
let me...
in.



Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He teaches Creative Writing at Endicott College. For years he ran poetry groups for psychiatric patients at McLean Hospital outside of Boston. His latest collection is The Essential Doug Holder: New and Selected Poems.

This cannot protect you by Doug Holder

The books you stacked
dusty columns
the entitlement
of their bold titles--
the absolute
authority
of their authors
fall with a shut
of the door.

This cannot protect you.

Your safe harbor...
some flimsy
false, fantasy
that
one
would not
outlast the
other.

This cannot protect you.

Surely,
you said,
"No one dies at the Au Bon Pain"
At least in your favorite cafe
a bagel
a New York Times
the transitory
assurance of the
coffee.

This cannot protect you.

You look to the early morning sun,
you thought this would bring
yet another day
the string of relentless rituals
the list of chores
checked out
in a strict chronological
order.

This cannot protect you.

You assumed
her hand
pressed in yours
finger to finger
veins twisting into veins
the skin between you
a spotted history
surely
this bond
cannot be broken.

This cannot protect you.

The cat curls up to you
it knows the scent
and something pierces the whiskey fog
of your long journey into night
and there is the sweet, ethereal horn
of a long dead jazzman.

All this
will not protect you.



Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His work has appeared in The Worcester Review, Rattle, Caesura, and many others. His latest book of poetry is The Essential Doug Holder: New and Selected Poems (Big Table Books). 

Looking at a Lone Woman in a Bar by Doug Holder

          *The Burren Pub: Davis Square

They are always so impenetrable.
A dead stare at the wall.
Her drink,
Some half-empty prop.
And the cigarette...
Still holding
A torch
But for what?

No -
My gaze will not be met
And the clues
She will leave
A certain dead end.
And the cigarette will smolder.
The smoke
Will follow its trail
To oblivion.



-Previously published in Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass. (Propaganda Press)



Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and is on the board of the New England Poetry Club. He teaches at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.

Reaching for the sky just to surrender by Doug Holder

          After "The Stranger Song" by Leonard Cohen

A gambler has a religion,
his tired dogma
that God is behind him
with every roll
of the pockmarked dice.

He will clasp
his hands
above his head
and realize that
it is not in the
cards for him.

Some errant Jack-of Hearts
will break his own.

His racing forms a desert
of defeat.

Our man will continue to look up
at the blue sky
raise his fists
like a mad King Lear

and surrender...



Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press, and former co-president of the New England Poetry Club. He teaches at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.

Am I Real? by Doug Holder

sometimes
i wonder.
i feel
like the mist
a transitory ghost
that dissipates
into the ether
a trail of vaporous
cigarette smoke
i feel
like an empty
glass
among cups that
runneth over
when the clouds
roll in
i want to join them
i want to billow
far above
and far away.



Doug Holder (he) is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and the Co-President of the New England Poetry Club.

A Clean Well-Lighted Place by Doug Holder

          * inspired by Ernest Heminway's short story

All I want is a clean
well-lighted place,
perhaps the silhouette of a tree
shadowing my face.
A beer so dark
and deep
it loosens the secrets
that I keep.

The polished bar
gleaming with Mahogony
serenity.

No music
to break the spell,
a table,
an old man
before he faces
the stygian kiss of
the night
where he
dwells.



Doug Holder is the co-president of the New England Poetry Club and the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA.