Michael S. Begnal

from A Colony of Ticks

 

 

1.

 

Crows in proximity

to town,

black-strung wire phones

 

their sort of squawks—

ain’t caws and

 

if you free a crow from distress

s/he will acknowledge

having peered

into your eye

 

 

2.

 

back into forests

as if a dream,

the tribe’s community’s

peninsular complex

rising into the air

above the bay

 

(like I have been / in

a tribe

in the forest)

 

 

3.

 

compose in the dark

lying on your back

in what is seen

as a cell,

in one of them,

a physical place,

where

pomes

inhere

 

i n

h e r e

 

     and along

 

 

4.

 

the composing halls,

dark tunnels

peopled

by poets

on the beds that line the walls

 

having taken

bites of the brown loaf

     of leaves

 

 

[outside] on the

shut-up white windows,

soft light on the soft screen

shades reflect the light

 

and later red shines on

what appears

as a cabin in the woods

 

 

5.

 

the body ’comes numb,

pomes of flying

cross the hills

and mountains

 

light on the branches below

 

 

 

6.

 

short poem

jewels of thought

 

ink paw prints

in space

 

*

Michael S. Begnal has published the collections Future Blues (Salmon Poetry, 2012), Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), and Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005). His blog site is located at http://www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com/