Two Poems By James B. Nicola

                                                    Another Theory of Everything

But all is only point of view—
and not that much of it is true.

                                                                       Read This

Read this, so I won’t be dead
and gone when I am dead and gone
but be in your head.

Turn me in the flowered bed
and notice in the budding dawn
my budding flower. Then I won’t be dead.

Be still?—No! I want instead
to still be, to go on and on,
and be in your head,

your sight, your breath, your mind—be read,
sung, danced—in movements that might spawn
my budding flower. Then I won’t be dead.

Then turn me to a rose bright red,
to fragrance where I’m spread or drawn:
your eyes, your lungs, your heart, your head.

And please remember what I’ve said
when you tend the bed or lawn:
Read this! Then I won’t be dead
but be in your head.

James B. Nicola’s poetry has garnered two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, seven Pushcart nominations, and one Best of the Net nom. His full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater, Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019), and Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021). A Yale grad, he also has enjoyed a career as a stage director, culminating in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.