TERRY WOLVERTON
Tinnitus Lullaby
s
Is the night swollen with birdsong
or are my cochleae singing
to me again, phantom echo
of sounds I once heard in pre-dawn
India, when trees came alive?
I called you across continents
so you too could hear the music
of birds awakening beside
the temple that glowed like a lantern,
while sacred chants poured from windows,
rippling across dark water.
I’ve always been lonely. The world
leaves its fingerprints on me,
but all I touch dissolves to smoke,
and I’m left listening only
to the music inside my head.
poetryrepairs #210 15,03:028
TERRY WOLVERTON
Cigarette Dreams
You’ve been someone else too long.
You’ve come to identify with her
blonde wig, stained fingernails, tiara.
We’ve grown accustomed to your little
monologues, heavy with death slang.
You’ve forgotten how to converse with rocks;
you hate their inertness, their fixity.
Smoke blooms from the end of your constant
cigarette; the ash grows longer, drops.
The acid day pierces your illusions.
Ideas are cooked slow in a calm eye.
The nipple is smarter than the brain.
You fail to perceive the other versions
of your story. Backyard rooster left,
can no longer show where the treasure hides.
If you could re-wind the scene, would you?
Now you sit in a room. Rock and want.
After death we no longer worry
cigarette dreams of the monkey brain
or recognize the sound of feathers.
poetryrepairs #210 15,03:028
AVERIL BONES
The Sea's Trophy
On a windy day we walked down
to a whipped sea, cropped by foam caps.
Even the sky's sweep lacked
a sharp postcard's choate panorama.
I did not struggle with the sea's first cling;
walked in (trepidatious) until no sand
secured my breath above the briny foam.
For a moment we swam in loose tandem.
Another moment and you were lost
to siren song and ancient phantoms,
hid yourself in deeper water.
Left alone, fear seized me.
I turned to land, was caught in eddies
whose frothing whirlpools dizzied me.
Panic is not a pretty thing.
Its dark mane passed over me.
Its maw called all the world's sand away,
left not enough to save me.
But I know the capricious sea, had only
to ride simple waves to the long shore
where warm breezes dried my soggy gills,
whipped my salty skin crusty.
I wait for you to surface.
poetryrepairs #210 15,03:028
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TERRY WOLVERTON has authored ten books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction,
most recently Wounded World: lyric essays about our spiritual disquiet. She is Affiliate
Faculty of the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University.
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