Poetry by Devon Brock
A Boeing occults Betelgeuse,red left and running,and an arrow loosedfinds not its mark.And in the green flickers,banked to a bull,some pink ears popand the belts stay locked. They’re always leaving,they in the vapors,they in the tubes,they strung betweenfutures and blues,plugged up in departuresand thus suspended,held there in grace -such grace - As Mercury crests the... Continue Reading →
Rise all you dead men and pound on your plots,Take to your saws and your fiddles, your pots;Take to your hammers and riddles and sighs;Bang out dirt music, pound the black skies. Dance with the vermin that scuttles the floor.Soft shoe the sand then cast up from the shore.Screech to deaf heaven the owl in... Continue Reading →
Once, in the attic,a marble - black as holes -rolled to me - came to reston the floorboards -below the rafters -cathedral and coarse. Once, in the attic,among the dustlightand distended grilleswhere I stood, a marblerolled to me - came to restin a joint, sprung from frostand heave. And once, in the attic,a man took... Continue Reading →
Steve had a blue tarp and two doe tags so we were certain that when he returned we would know. When he split down 425 in his late-model red Silverado, the mud from last night’s rain gave way and the new ruts stretched over the rise as dawn broke. Nothing to do but wait -... Continue Reading →
First the eagle glid low overhead.Then the farm cat, lame and tabby,limped from bumper to dumpster,while we smokedand whined about our day. Image: Patrick Brinksma on Unsplash
But for the pheasant’s coppered wing the fieldsin sculpted snows ne’er bring the promised yieldsnor pleasures found ‘til light does crest the riseat dawn and ambers claw upon the eyes. To wake and wonder here among such thingsas iridescence glides there down and bringsunto these smothered lands and frostbit handsa hope that winter’s scoff no... Continue Reading →
Published in "La Piccioletta Barca" - Issue 18 - April 2020: https://picciolettabarca.com/issues/issue-18/
It is not the sapling or bit snowthat scrapes the window, coaxing,Come out little boy, come out -Come out where the sting wind blowsCome out where the wind plays a saplingas a rube to scratch its bidding on a window.That little life left tight against the foundationmissed in the pruning now the dim wittedaccomplice to... Continue Reading →
Three rib bones flush from the culvert pipeafter hunks of pelvis beside the tracks -the tracks with no arms but rumblerumble strips and red bell ticks. Clang go the boneswhere no grass grows Bang go the trainsand the pink prairie rose Rattles with the rushin the same stiff pose as ribs and hunks of pelvis... Continue Reading →
We came upon the delta, we, brothers,split out from the blue wide river,contrapuntal and lost among cypress,moss, muck and brute-teeth jangles. And though I never carried a tune,I carry the tone of your faded fifths,your deviled tri’s and slip-foot riffs,an octave less than finding you gone. But in these stale bite-fly airs,in this green moss-dripped... Continue Reading →
