USouthAl Poets

How many crosses have I passed along the highway?
Hardly noticed by me.
Unforgettable to someone.
What action caused its planting?
Like a small white tree among the shrubs,
No leaves on its limbs,
Flowers tied to its base?
Was it an accident caused by a drunk driver?
Who swerved off the road late at night,
With no other car to witness?
Perhaps,
A thunderstorm in [...]

Edwin Arlington Robinson’s old man
Dug a grave in the woods
For his old Amaryllis to lay.
But amaryllis’ are only one type of flower,
So where do the azaleas go when they die?
Do camellias have some second home for the winter?
Do they begin to pack unseen bags
As their peddles wilt and fall to the ground?
Do they ponder whether to [...]

Beautiful Parasite
The doctors say you’re growing every day,
working to fill the gap that makes me who I am.
I must admit, despite the cause of you,
I’ve grown attached. 
But I cannot help but see you as an uninvited guest,
stealing from my body to create your own.
I swear I felt it when you first leached onto me
to feed, [...]

Celestial Daydream
Some nights I’d look
toward the Sagittarius skies
and picture a black hole
devouring the Milky Way,
asteroid vagrants marmalading
across the stippled plain. 
I could see it suck the bitter iron
of jawbreaker planets,
as they careened into its gaping
mouth, the fiery spits of stifled suns
and chalky moons sending a slick
belch of gaseous breath
from an unseen belly. 
I imagined the helium candy [...]

Ravish Me, Oh Lord
I pluck your feathers out
like clumps of stubborn milkweeds
and smear them on your pallid face,
wanting you to taste your own surrender,
to feed upon what makes you what you are.
I rip away your incandescent robe
and watch you writhe beneath  my hands,
bald wings flailing like zombie chicken flesh,
talc skin browning where I touch you,
like [...]