Wasp
Outward, the quest for
space and the wings’
hunger to unfold and
shed this home of dark
flesh and encompassing desire.
And each thing remembered, the broken
sheath, the flowering desert’s return,
reflects the notion of being, of intent
in action and its corollary,
the gift of living through death.
* * *
“Wasp” last appeared here in January 2017.
Read this poem, and consider ordering Stephanie L. Harper’s forthcoming chapbook!
Dear Bob: In one of my former incarnations
as a starving, family-less, twenty-something Grad
Student, well before the advent of emails & texting,
when handwritten sentiments on stationery were still
in vogue, I certainly sent my share of “Dear Bob Letters.”
The recipients thereof, on the whole a far cry from being
remotely “Bob-like,” included a number of real posers,
some of whom now strut & crow on Facebook like
the ancient, hoary roosters (read: cocks) they clearly are.
As for the others (more of them than you might imagine),
they’re all dead, several by their own hands, even—a stone-
cold statistic (the seeming synchronicity of which is tough
to ignore) I frequently grapple with, sorting through conjured,
a posteriori details & associated, surreal imagery by day, &
chasing after egotistical ghosts in my über-symbolic dreams
by night, always with the conviction that…
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My poem, “Year’s End,” which is included in my micro-chapbook Only This, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Only This is available via free download from Origami Poems Project. Thank you to Jan and Kevin Keough for this honor!
Year’s End
If I lose myself in breathing,
will the air forgive my forgetfulness?
This oak, too, will stand long after
the last train exits the tunnel.
I worry that my friend may never
clamber past his lowest ambition.
Different and unabated, our words
now stumble over themselves.
Every night forms a morning somewhere:
each year, combined in our shared darkness.
* * *
My poem “The Bitter Celebrates” is live at Amethyst Review. Thank you, Sarah Law, for taking this piece.
Read Lily Blackburn’s insightful review of Stephanie L. Harper’s This Being Done.
My poem, “Chilled Soba,” has been published by Kikwetu: A Journal of East African Literature. I am grateful to the editors for accepting my poem.
Jeff Schwaner’s “Hymnals” illuminate my shadowed days. Follow along. You won’t regret it.
That day the house hit my brain with a piece
of its basement it was like I finally saw death’s
name. Like death was revealed as a real person,
someone you’d asked to see if the right size
shoes were in the back and who disappeared
and never came back out but now here he is
years later, he’s cradling this box in his arms
and he’s close enough so you realize he must
have an actual name, he’s not the devil or any
supernatural thing, he’s just the person who will
put on the shoes for you, you’d better sit down
for this, and when he leans down to fix the laces
there are more people behind him, an unending
line of all the people who’ve been helping you
toward your death, from before you were born
up to the last face you will see. I…
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This talk of destiny and exceptionalism and the incessant
push towards terror inflames my metaphorical innards.
Birds may kill, but they don’t practice genocide and never
erase history’s missteps with published falsities; their songs
remain true. Not so with man. What grows importance is
not what you hold but what another has in his grasp, no matter
how tenuous. I think of water and how some would charge
for the right to drink, or withhold it from those who cannot
pay. And air? Whose breath defines the dollar? Or the fear
that a distant neighbor might receive a benefit that you
neither need nor desire. Crows claim territory but roam
with the season, adapt as necessary. While they may provoke
curses in their wake, their damage is temporary and they
don’t poison for profit. If I could leave my post what station
would I accept? Having shared my days with sky-bound
friends, how could I choose another? They sing and swoop
and cooperate among the winds, taking only what they need.
They neither hoard nor covet. They steal but don’t swindle.
Their wings lift no grudges. Even gravity respects them.
“Scarecrow Replies” first appeared in MockingHeart Review in May 2018. Thank you to editor Clare Martin for her generosity and many kindnesses.
“In Praise of Chiggers” first appeared here in August, 2017. We’re past the season now…
Daniel Paul Marshall strikes gold:
“(Asian carp?) leap out the pristine waters like
a good idea which granulates into fuzz
before you have time to write it down…”
And the discussion on similes in the comments is like a bright torch in a dark well… Sorry, couldn’t resist.
O at the Edges 