Winter 2005

 


WINTER 2005


Wayne Atherton
THREE POEMS
 
December 6, 2003

Truth don't lie.
Berra say that?
I need to be wild.
Tonight snow flew like
white winged thorns,
a fierce hail of wet
nettles from north
to east. Tonight
the weather is in my blood
(Thank You, Henry Miller)
I switch back from wine
to beer, ninety minutes
on up to midnight shoveling
a blizzard against itself,
expecting my heart to give
(Hell, it's 52 years beat)
Gusty bitch of a wintry gale
she is, carving up mighty drift
upon drift. Will I do this again
next year? Okay, one
slow shot of Calvados
before turning in.

 
Malice in Yardland

Up country it is
not uncommon
for rust farmers
to piss off the
yard nazi's
next door.
Put up a
stockade fence
and mow to
your heart's
discontent
that another's sense
of relaxed disorder
offends your aryan command
over every blade
of grass.

 
Naming the Baby

Tonight my water broke all
over the flag draped upon a
recently deceased president's
casket, the one shown on TV
the same TV not allowed to show
common dead soldier caskets
flown back home from Iraq. Now
I'm a man mind you, and that water
fell from a dream. Hope I can pick up
where that dream left off...I have lots
of names picked out.


Wayne Atherton is senior editor of The Cafe' Review, a poetry & art quarterly published in Portland, Maine since 1989. Go to www.cafereview.org.

 

 

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