And this morning we bring our feature of Gregory Lawless to a close with these two new poems. Thanks to Greg and to everyone who followed along. Please look for Greg’s books online through Back Pages Books and BlazeVOX, his publishers. — AS
Thresher
Stained-glass misgivings / Dawn-filings / Fissures
of photographic time
~
Watching your mother lie down / Hands to temples
or chest
~
The alone part / The ringing with wrench and
bucket to scatter these starlings now
~
Hay-field finale of threshes / From the highway,
just miles and miles of bales
I’ve Seen Thee Far Away
I’ve seen thee in the brush, a scrawl of buckthorn
tenting thee, thy fangs sleeping, thy bread gnawed
down to rind.
I’ve seen thee dying like a man who must ask how
to die.
I’ve seen thee grow tree shadow and thy lapping at
the creek.
Thy car is nettled and thy wheel wells stir with
pests.
The world-flower has eaten thee.
The dirt speech of her petals — she spooks thee with
her thorns.
Come here, the moon sugars the scrap barrels. The
cinderblocks rough the meadow. Come ring thy
empty tin of turpentine.
Lift the field cat from its crate. Trudge thy fingers
through its mange and chew what fleas away.
Name it, thy precious wreck.
Thy darkling. Thine orphan. The black friendship of
thy days.
