Poetry, Joseph M. Gant
Mallow
she doubts into
a pillow-case
lying prone again
where the stymie
of the falling
rain begins again without a tear.
restless and broken
with no more recourse;
a box and a blanket,
a lace and a shoe,
a pencil made of bitten tongues.
we were youthful until we learned how to sleep.
Soiled
the cold oxidation of all
you have stolen,
the rot in the food which
bloats a foul gut;
there is tinge in your memories
lifted from marrow,
and burning of celluloid histories lost.
I am discord of voices you pry
from all angels, the mocking
in smiles and tears that you reap;
rogue weeds in the garden of orgasmic fruits,
dead needles that fall by the trunk of your pine.
but I seek not from you a belief in me here
for I am the catch in the throat of your prayers–
you are crime less than perfect if ever there was,
and I am the evidence planted with stone.
Red
the bleeding edge
of every eye
so tired from the
weeping
falling tears
in footprints
trodden
sand and
untouched snow where
angels drown
in games of children and of monsters
Posturing
there was promise in the fist you bore
shaking on the arm’s indignant righteous tine.
fingers wrapped into the palm, holding
time’s endearing possibility of present.
no one shook, nor muscle flinched—
there was message and delivery,
and each of us anticipating packages to process.
and tears knew better than to shed:
conductive to the discharge, never
soft to cushion . . . how the decades
by then had taught so well.
light cast shadows hard between the knuckles bare,
sexy, shaking with certainty of virgins’ glances;
pinned between the moment’s act and forever’s glaring judgment.
and on one knee, beneath the rage— begging mercy
of the moment gone we promised all the hours left
and bearing heartbeats to the monstrous did devour.
frozen in your stance, we waited on deliverance.
and tears did one day fall where dust was made of us, forgotten.
