Gary Maxwell
Psalm
thou hast raised me up
from my bed of misery: a nest of needles, every midnight nuisance known, no cellphone signal. free range like chicken, every bedpan overthrown, now set on side streets where the pigeons print my name on waiting windshields. sprung from the pokie, granted gifts of air and sun, I wait their winking - winsome Barbies bearing beer while I sit waiting. Calendars
Have you ever mourned your way
from Christmas to Epiphany, worn out by the weight of streaming shoppers darting madly through the maze of lights, partaking of the sacraments of savvy salesmen, easy marks for mercantile manipulators – priesthood of the golden calf? Have you smoked and screwed your way, Fat Tuesday clear to Pentecost, never coming up for air, pituitary pitted like a peach seed, keeping its own calendar, counting down the days until you drown, stone like, having skipped the sea and then, well spent, you’ll seek the bottom? Spare me all those Etch-A-Sketch constructed constellations, I’ll take fists of stars straight up, flung carelessly where velvet shows, most intimately, all the acts and outcomes of creation, having no regard for cardboard boxes, shipping crates or inventory tags we use to keep that Power in its place. thunder
her shorts hide nothing.
smiling in the subway night, a silent offer. garden underneath the ground. each fruit a round, fresh marvel ready for harvest, and the longing of your loins aches out an answer to a hollow, drumming heart that’s filled your ears with thunder
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Tanka
Golden Apple
this golden apple - fallen from its hammered mold - will gleam forever, knowing neither rot nor worm, never feeding anyone. September 11 too much to tell you parked beneath September skies, and so I offer ripened beauty, bitter worlds, in a silent pool of rain. team crow
team crow, tactical:
deployed and on the asphalt in a show of force. flying eyes report bits of bun – and even cheese. unfinished French fries. they’ll take no chances. murder works the open lot - their eyes miss nothing. what if a package left where no one thinks to peek holds half a hoagie? everyone freezes. only bad birds run away - that’s what they tell us. doomed souls are docile. claws now have the force of law, so we’ll keep silent. this time there’s nothing. wrap up, rasping last reports, and then they scatter. so many strangers flying north and south these days. we start – heart pounding. how has it happened, fearing foul and filthy flocks, we trust birds in black? Haiku
rosy-fingered dawn
rosy-fingered dawn, shaking as she does each day, squirms into her bra. |
