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Friday 18 April 2014

Michael S. Begnal

from A Colony of Ticks
 
 
1.
 
Crows in proximity
to town,
black-strung wire phones
 
their sort of squawks—
ain’t caws and
 
if you free a crow from distress
s/he will acknowledge
having peered
into your eye
 
 
2.
 
back into forests
as if a dream,
the tribe’s community’s
peninsular complex
rising into the air
above the bay
 
(like I have been / in
a tribe
in the forest)
 
 
3.
 
compose in the dark
lying on your back
in what is seen
as a cell,
in one of them,
a physical place,
where
pomes
inhere
 
i n
h e r e
 
     and along
 
 
4.
 
the composing halls,
dark tunnels
peopled
by poets
on the beds that line the walls
 
having taken
bites of the brown loaf
     of leaves
 
 
[outside] on the
shut-up white windows,
soft light on the soft screen
shades reflect the light
 
and later red shines on
what appears
as a cabin in the woods
 
 
5.
 
the body ’comes numb,
pomes of flying
cross the hills
and mountains
 
light on the branches below
 
 
 
6.
 
short poem
jewels of thought
 
ink paw prints
in space
 

*

Michael S. Begnal has published the collections Future Blues (Salmon Poetry, 2012), Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), and Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005). His blog site is located at http://www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com/

1 comment:

  1. Michael, nice bit of work. Lots of tension and great sounds. Love the strike-out in the last stanza, ending with the "p" sounds of the last 2 lines.

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