Poetry — .

absence on water

in quiet attraction
our palms pulled
atoms
from the conga
skin
a soft brush
of silence
you said
gives shape
to our beat
even then
my cadence
was
always
latent
always inside
never
quite
fluent
in the liquidity
of the tempo

drum
teacher
departed sage
and
seeker
of soul
in sinew
the autumns
pass
and my rhythms
are like yellow
leaves
dry and
deprived
my cupped
hands
neither
contain
nor free
the plasma
of the clave

i listen
for you
in the silence
that begs
for a sound
i see you
in the water
that ripples
in the distance
made present
by the
great
absence
that lingers
above

Released by Bottlecap Press February, 2026 Press here for Bottlecap Site

In Absence On Water, released by Bottlecap Press in 2026, Michael Grodesky crafts elements of lyric and description in an expressive syntax that explores dialectics such as absence and presence. The poems consider how the absence of one thing may reveal the presence of another, in much the way silence is needed for the creation of sound.

The poems are grounded in minimalism as a world view and reflect a voice that is shaped by the use of space and silence. and the interesting tension between a quiet diction paired sometimes vivid images.

The collection is centered around topics which are intensely human and in some cases touch strong emotions associated with suicide and bullying,

Featured in the University Of Washington Magazine Feature in the Spring, 2026 Edition

Inspiration for my poetry comes from many sources. Sometimes just a word, a feeling or an image. In my collection Absence On Water, one of the sources of inspiration came from the work of American composer, music theorist, poet and writer John Cage, I was introduced to Cage’s work by my long-time drum teacher Ronald Bucknam who often professed one of Cage’s fundamental dialectics: that for sound to be present, there must be silence. Read more about Cage at the link below.:

. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

Another source of inspiration came from the images of Busan-based photographer Jungwon Park. He is globally recognized for his minimalist, black-and-white long-exposure seascapes and landscapes, capturing surreal, tranquil atmospheres using medium-format analog cameras. I find that his minimalist scapes invoke an interesting tension between what is present and what is absent. I was inspired to create that same experience in the poems of this collection. I imagined the poems looking visually similar to the linear objects in his photographs. See Park’s photographs at his website below:

ht t p ://jungwonpark.net/?ckattempt=1

The cover photo for Absence On Water was one I took myself with morning fog overlooking Mutiny Bay on Whidbey Island in Washington state, near Seattle.

Dissimilation
Manzanar, 1942

Forget
the way they brought you here
on trains and buses shrouded
in silks of euphemism. The way

you were unhomed

and taken from what you thought
had been the dream.

Maybe you forget the
barbed wire
fences that sharpen into focus
and the skeletons of lifeless apple
trees that black and white
the distance. And maybe you

don’t feel

your eyes sting with smoke
from bombs that settled
on the winds of the Pacific.
The desert sand each day is clumped

with sweat and tears.
Children grow up. Men transform
the desert into gardens and waterfalls
and women wash the ashes
from their shirts.

Tarpaper barracks
become the ghosts of home.

And maybe you wonder
when the inside

became the outside
and when

the last traces of astonishment
faded from your eyes. When
you stopped looking forward
to the horizon and began to speak

in whispers.