Patrick Schultz

CONTACT:
PJ Schultz
Stevens Point, WI
Email: patrickschultz@live.com

BIO:
Patrick is poet who, to pay his bills, has worked a career in insurance. He is originally from Ohio and graduated in business from Bowling Green State University. He’s moved around the country in his career, which finds him currently in Wisconsin. He lost his muse many years ago until rediscovering it later, unexpectedly, in life; he’s now working on his craft. He’s inspired by themes of the natural world and our relationship to it. He also draws inspiration from matters of faith, relationships, as well as childhood themes and current events. Thank you for showing an interest in his work.

Poetry

An Ending

Melancholy is the rattle arising 
from the slow death of love—
equal measures of both 
fear and peace, 
pain and healing—
and it looks like the stillness
of a supernova in the night sky  
but it feels like the splitting 
and tearing of tree trunks 
by powers greater than 
the strength of aged wood 
or gravity itself.
Then silence

Scars

The oak before me, born
as it were, too far north
of where his family thrive.
Birth is capricious that way.
Despite the diseased spots
on his skin, along his frame,
his leaf remains tender.

When I climbed Mazama’s rim,
she stole my breath in a start.
I’d entered her sanctuary,
subsumed in her dense, still
immensity. Her blue heart—
clear, quiet, cold, deep, pure—
riven from cataclysm. 

From the first time her eyes
locked upon mine, cradled in
my arms, she knew. I knew.
Seeds sown by chaos
share similar roots. Flowers
of beauty in hard soil from seeds
grown through pain.