New Poetry by Tom Montag

from The Old Monk Poems

We could tell you

twice as much,

the old monk said,

and you still wouldn't

know the half of it.

~

Is this what

it comes to,

the old monk asked--

an old man,

a cot,

cold coffee?

~

Where the horses run,

the wind follows,

the old monk said.

- © Tom Montag 2021

Tom Montag's books of poetry include: Making Hay & Other Poems; Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; This Wrecked World; The Miles No One Wants; Imagination's Place; Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy. Two new collections, The River Will Tell You and Maybe Holy: Six Old Monk Poems are forthcoming. His poem 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.