Like Pathfinder
I retreat
across smooth roots,
streetlights,
and the moon’s severed hand
reaching for the wrinkled waist
of a pear tree.
Like Pathfinder
I slip sideways between mercurial shadows
on my way to the outskirts
of the known universe
just behind the speckled thigh
of a golden pear.
I enter each brown spot on the pear
looking for salvation
born inside each russet scale
sloughed from the body
of our most precious religion
we call time.
Once inside, I’m greeted
by black violins
and ten thousand suns digesting
a watery consciousness
inside snail shells.
Like Pathfinder
I retreat
across smooth roots,
streetlights,
and the moon’s severed hand
creasing the wrinkled hips
of a pear tree.
Alan Britt, MD, USA
2 comments:
Alan Britt’s recent books are Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin: 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008.
Politically speaking Alan has started the Commonsense Party, which ironically to some sounds radical. He believes the US should stop invading other countries to relieve them of their natural resources including tin, copper, bananas, diamonds and oil. He is quite fond of animals both wild and domestic and supports prosecuting animal abusers. As a member of PETA, he is disgusted by factory farming and decorative fur. Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formally feral cats.
I liked this from the 'off'. Beautifully crafted, with striking imagery.
Post a Comment