Fifty years
since it stepped
from the brush
the moose
on the wall
smiles
–Thom Ward,
Bigger Than They Appear:
Anthology of Very Short Poems
(Accents Publishing)
Fifty years
since it stepped
from the brush
the moose
on the wall
smiles
–Thom Ward,
Bigger Than They Appear:
Anthology of Very Short Poems
(Accents Publishing)
Winter won’t give itself over to spring. She said,
If you start out depressed, everything else is a bonus.
Each morning I piss excellence, was his response.
If we’re lucky, notes trudge out to us, and sometimes
we start singing upside down. Invisible trolls
smash old radiator pipes with their invisible hammers.
Hello to the firelight in scotch, goodbye to the smoke
in whiskey. Is that a sudden rush of comfort? Or just
another guy playing catch-and-release consumer?
The couch in my shrink’s office continues to bet against
me, and the bank plans to mortgage my shadow.
Travel Sunday morning in Saturday’s shoes: recall
how the weight of that leather will outlast us, except
for those embarrassments our children agreed to forgive.
There’s the cold that manifests and there’s the cold
we blast at others because we can. One by one
these flakes, confused paratroopers behind enemy lines,
strike the windows, the roof, cling to branches.
Zealous believers drive their vessels into precarious
waters, know the fury of the hunt, as elsewhere
sudden squalls begin inside the agnostic’s head.
If you stay out too long in the snow, your hands
will get icesolated, our five-year-old says, just
in case we forget. I follow bleached rivulets of toothpaste
down the drain, another trail of exhausted ideas.
Woodchuck, please forgive small reckonings we run
through. Sun, shadow, shadow, sun—the white cloak
of the asinine each year gets dumped on you.
–Thom Ward,
Etcetera’s Mistress
Accents Publishing
More from Etcetera’s Mistress and Thom Ward:
by the questions that have escaped the notion
of self, if not, then chased down the street
by mad dogs with rabbis. Each day the world’s
fabric tears a bit more even as the pure shooter
lets go the ball with such ease, like gently stroking
the head of a newborn. Will you be my baby?
Teach me how to rescue so many bright toys
locked in dark rooms. Most of us a forgotten
connotation for minnow: someone or something
deemed insignificant. But seldom you, friend, especially
on those mornings you bury your face in a bowl
of porn flakes. Sacred? Profane? Call in the lights,
the cameras, I’m doing just fine moving through
this old life, so much plotting, but no plot.
–Thom Ward,
Etcetera’s Mistress
Accents Publishing
More from Etcetera’s Mistress and Thom Ward: