inertia1
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THREADS OF LIGHT IN A NIGHT SKY
A ROAD BLOCK OF WILDFLOWERS
Asters Daisies Chicory Blackeyed Susans
"It just stopped me cold Cold"
Detours
Through
Memory's Elysian Fields
Most of all
When out gardening
I love the swing of a mattock
Or the spade's deep delve
Dirt has more meaning
When four leaf clovers die
When worms are sliced to threes
Helping to teach me not to lie & how hard
It must be to plant a soul in this earth
John McKernan teaches at Marshall University in West Virginia. Recent poems of his have appeared in The Paris Review, Kestrel, The Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Manoa. A chapbook of his Greastest Hits was published in 2002 by Pudding House.
I will treat myself to a sip of vodka
every quarter mile
This might be Africa Wet Humid Trees
The women glowing in starlight Pet tears
in the creases of their hands & chins
Many fields hold thin lakes of dew Deeper in light
I expect a corpse any minute now Dangling
from a bent tree
Nada Silent jawbone of the moon Gravel
I don't think this is really an earthquake
I want this quiet to be raped by a violin
A crib sheet listing the names of all the bad
popes in Latin Whose list?
A. R. Ammons died yesterday He asked
me to call him Archie I said Yes Sir
He usually found something outside his skull
I'd like to see his corpse I wonder if
he was wearing those blue Bib Overalls
Look Jack Up there in the sky It's not you-
r pain or your history or shoe size or ...
It is a shadow flying Hard wing flap A slap
Then gone Replaced with the cry of a . . . High
pitched
I'll bet that is the neighbor's rabbit The one
she had bought for her daughter's birthday
A lot of words never appeared in an
Ammons poem
Sorrow Pain Grief Howl Mother Teresa
Good I'm happy to have poems that hurt us
without knives or driveby shootings
Goodbye Mister Ammons I will miss your
bright clean honest eye Your line
A ROAD BLOCK OF WILDFLOWERS
Asters Daisies Chicory Blackeyed Susans
"It just stopped me cold Cold"
Detours
Through
Memory's Elysian Fields
Most of all
When out gardening
I love the swing of a mattock
Or the spade's deep delve
Dirt has more meaning
When four leaf clovers die
When worms are sliced to threes
Helping to teach me not to lie & how hard
It must be to plant a soul in this earth
John McKernan teaches at Marshall University in West Virginia. Recent poems of his have appeared in The Paris Review, Kestrel, The Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Manoa. A chapbook of his Greastest Hits was published in 2002 by Pudding House.