rural sewage, twister tunnel runs
like water damaged dust and rat
feces soaking the lawn down to
a dog in the ground a town over
rusted tin and pewter, twin-sized
coffin in the air with its upside down,
breathing shredded wings of angels,
neighbor's manure & wind blowing
songs to a heart-shaped music box,
crooked lattice peeling splintering
train whistle killing the night birds
dropping them like flies in summer
heat, dripping aeroplane trophies
chipped unscrewed vent whispering
into a hand-held radio, silverfish
in plastic bags hiding girl waiting
to be sought, disappearing in snow
covers in wedgwood stains & dead oak
branches of glass cracking beneath
white lace and clanking metal spoons
carved with the names of alabama
i remember this place, maroon sofa
off-white lead paint, night light on
hand-sewn pillows, empty orange lamp
casting over fields that stretch and
stretch for years im seven and filled
like a tapered glass of cranberry
juice she poured, she pours & pours
Four kegs, they’d left on the rye field’s bare crest
gone were the skittles and the balls of wood.
Four kegs empty of magical brew, strewn
upon the hill’s breasts, where gnomes had stood.
They’d left long ago, twenty years today.
Here’d been a mountain, where now a farm stood.
They had left their tipple as each strike thundered
to lambaste lightning from stacked firewood.
On the rye field’s bare crest now shrouded in snow
beneath a Wedgwood sky, stood kegs of wood.
On the rye field’s bare crest each keg turned stone
marking the bones where rebels once stood.
Gone ‘till tonight, the gnomes and jack tars
until the moon’s magic topped the keg’s wood.
Gone till tonight were the hard balls and pegs
this night spirits would dance where we now stood.
Published 2017 by Illumen
It was a Sunday lunchtime
When my son's voice I heard
Mum may I please keep him
In surprise at him I stared
He held a tiny kitten
It's head against his chest
Mottled brown, grey and white
His fur, in alarm, a crest
My son with eyes of sepia brown
Pleaded his cause to me
"I've found him in the garden
above our sycamore tree"
"He must belong to someone",
so saying I stroked it's fur
"Try number forty one"
"I did, but no-ones there"
The kitten surveyed my kitchen
With eyes of wedgwood blue
He struggled to be put down
Then gave a plaintive mew
"He probably wants milk"
So my son into action flew
He commandeered the milk bottle
Then the fridge for tomorrow's stew
The kitten circled expectantly
Shadowing every movement made
Then as if a connoisseur of food
He surveyed the spread we laid
Anticipating his instinctive relish
We exchanged looks of glee
After casually sniffing it, with nose aloft
He skipped out to the sycamore tree.
The powdery snow gloves the fingers
of maple forest, protecting barren bark
with the expectation of rose tipped bloom.
A meeting point between pristine
innocence and the veiled promise of spring
ripening. Each trunk and limb mirrors
the action of man. Reaching, arching,
swaying, creating aisles of church-like splendor,
a sacrament where the virginal may walk
toward communion with their God. Inward
toward the birth of faith and outward toward
the wedgwood sky in celestial sight.
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