Posts for 2020 (page 97)

Eddie’s rabbit choked on a carrot
sounds like a joke–it ain’t
i was the one feeding it to him,
he died–now he’s a saint

Eddie got mad and chased me outside,
pushed me down on his lawn
punched me in the face–stomach, too,
punched me ’till blood was drawn

Eddie used to be my very best friend,
but now, every day, at school
he looks at me mean, but he won’t talk
and the girls think he’s moody and cool

Eddie don’t eat carrots no more,
I think they make him sad
his rabbit was cute–his name was Syl–
that rabbit was all Eddie had

leave the grave green
against the fall of night

the blue salt road
gently by the shore

dancing bears
so brave, young, and handsome

the seventh function of language
tried by fire

a box of frogs
the heart’s invisible furies

guns of outlaws
kitchen knife skills

nourishing broth
grain of truth

seeing flowers
open house for butterflies

the mirrors have never given her
a kinder report. she knows well
her lonesomeness, pertinent for this
moment and unknown for its depth.
it is an ivory flattery to see herself
in this light, at every angle. it is
one certainty preceding the rest.

I store the Infinite inside me
in the space behind my heart

Like a skein of silk, 
it unspools out and out 
until I am empty and

Time falls away
condensing to Now

when there is only 
the baby I bathe
a fiddle lilting through humid twilight air  
three hawks soaring on thermals high above three graves
Marc’s three Red Horses dancing on a museum wall
lakewater surging on a sailboat’s high side
a press of slick bodies chorusing near a stage
the thrum of snow-packed tires on a cattle guard 
or 
a red meteor shooting west in the northern sky

until Time moves again
and the spool gathers in the moment
in a blink

I savor these blisses 
swirling like galaxies behind my breasts
on mornings on the threshold of waking

I save these blisses
for a morning when I wake with my vision dimmed
so the spool can run out and out and out
emptying me
until Time falls away

The taste of summer makes me
drunk when I feel sober
as I stumble into open skies,
unlock my mind to gain some closure.

Friend, do you remember
when the only thing asked of us
was to keep our breath at home.
Even then we were divided—
those who saved the world
by holding ourselves distant from it;
those who stocked the shelves
that kept the rest of us alive
and hauled away our excess
in their beeping, stinking trucks.
No matter how little we thought we had,
friend, it was always too much.

On a dry riverbed—
earnestly or insincerely?—
wondering if rocks miss the water,
thinking first “their” water
then revising it
out of conviction
nothing is really owned.
Anything with a mouth can bite you.
The Nature Center employee states
what we ourselves have intuited.
I got a tick and some flint.
I removed some flint and a tick.
Flint as nature’s jawbreaker.
Shell within a shell.
My phone suggests I am a carrot
and yet we still go to it for answers.

By design, I’ve been waiting
to post my next poem after a
special visit from corporate.

They still are not here:

I’m running out of time on this shift,
and I’ve got better camping to do.

The Hatchet

 I want to live
with Grandfather’s
hatchet in my hand
            and his hat on my head
            riding on a sled
            pulled by two old horses.
They know the way
to the back field.

And,
they don’t mind
            the load they bear.
They carried it for him
all those years ago.

 I could walk beside
the sled like he did
            wade through briars
                      and Clover
see fish jumping
in the scum covered pond.

 Then I could find the place
where the cows got out
            that day.

That’s where I’d find him
            laying in the grass
            looking at the sky
and grinning.

He’d stand up
            take his hat
            scruff my head
and say,
“Come on, Buffalo,
wait ‘til you see this.”

Tony Sexton

Heavily guarded
recessed in the dark
behind a secret panel
inside a steel box
suspended in hell
a locked away cache
of bloody clothes bides
forever dripping gore
of great personal assaults
of being caught in crossfire
of giving first aid to others
entombed and indestructible 
brutality buried yet
persistent specters stalk
their prey in the night

Look back
don’t stare