Henry D. Poláček

Biography

I've been an avid poetry reader and writer since I was quite quite. Have one physical chapbook self-published sitting probably pretty lonely on the shelf at Powell's. Born and raised in SLC, Utah and transplanted to Portland, Oregon my belove roseland. Have written poetry under the tutelage of the Poetess Kaia Sand. We worked as part of her residency in the PDX Municipal Archives on a series of poems in conversation with police surveillance archive from the 1960's and 70. Since this worked I have focused on writing everyday and am looking to publish my next chapbook by June. Best Wishes & Honey in the Heart.

Samples

Forgetting The passing of time so often comes like a tiny ghost. It comes with little hands pulling your face down, moulding ridges and valleys like a worn and unwashed sheet after weeks of rest. It comes with small crossed feet walking away at the edge of your eyes. Your eyes growing white with clouds rolling in silently descending from the pears of your irises. It comes to take things, trinkets, your grandmother’s silver earrings, what decorations are left from your first Christmas on your own, in a new country. Satisfied it disappears again. And when the hills of joy grow high, it runs to hide in the shadow of the cedars your father planted or maybe under beneath the verandah in the dark crawlspaces. But then it comes for more, for bigger things, for old novels, for half-burnt prayer candles, even family recipes you could have sworn you had written down, writ in you. One day, you caught the little thief. He came creaking through the valleys of cracked linoleum. You sat him down and urged questions through the night: “What are you doing here?” “What are you hiding from?” “Where does it all go?” Tired now and alone, there are no more questions. No thoughts hiding under the roof of your tongue, So he goes again, this time only with your handkerchief and your tears until you’re glad for meeting someone comforting as an old friend. When he returns on little feet growing more real - you start to recognize her. You begin to bargain with her, your mind becoming not unlike a flea market or some bazaar. You try to save some things for your family: stories, your grandfather’s coat, the framed windows into you, but they usually don’t have the arms to carry so many gifts- and certainly not the space. So most things sit around you. Only old blankets or blouses to put your arms around. The rest begins to go, what’s left you leave to forgiving.. He strides in daily, a mailman with no delivery, only there to take packages to elsewhere, out there. You have no time now to begrudge him, he takes those things around you and orbits closer to what sits inside you. One day, without warning he comes and asks to take you with him. “Where?” you thought without remembering any other questions. He says: “To where I live now, to where I go, my home, after all this you know.” And you do, you probably always did, it was less forgot then hid so you stand up. You clutch the most precious things you can find in your palms and walk to the edge of the door. You remember how You heard once that everyone dies two deaths: one in your body and one in their hearts and against forgetting you still know their hearts are strong.

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