Poetry — March 7, 2017 11:59 — 1 Comment

Two Poems – Jeff Ewing

Reintroducing the Wolf

There’s no moon
tonight to dress the lawn
or drape the low bed,
the only light the clock
fallen from the nightstand.

Outside, the street bucks
the sidewalk’s bank, a
transformer hums. What stirs
an unquiet mind from
its preoccupations?

The wolf enters panting,
muscles tensing under
the sheets. A tentative half-
snarl culled from base pairs
breaks from my throat as

I lope through waist-high
grass. Birds without number
hurtle above me, cragged
wind keens from my
north, blue as inlaid ice.

How sweet the loosed
blood, how blinding
the heat sweeping from
the backs of falling sheep
like blown snow!

Beside me, my wife
stirs, turns her back. With
no sound (no bleat or
whimper) the latest star
to die blinks out…

and in the hole it leaves
I fall back into myself—
the taste of blood still fresh,
my pale skin clammy
and strange to the touch.

 

Aubade, Approximate April

A beautiful thing seen once
remains a beautiful thing

but viewed again and again
from every angle and at every

time of day loses something
of its singularity. The wildflowers

coming in are a nuisance,
the sky ribbed with cirrus is just

another sky ribbed with cirrus.
Waking to the new sun gilding

the same old horizon, I pull a pillow
over my head—too tired to wonder

what that dripping sound is, like
snow melting from the face of Denali.

Bio:

Jeff Ewing is a writer from Northern California. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Sugar House Review, ZYZZYVA, Willow Springs, Utne Reader, Crazyhorse, Beloit Poetry Journal, Saint Ann's Review, and Southwest Review, among others. jeffewing.com

One Comment

  1. Diane James Ewing says:

    Wolf, perfection. Great topic , and I am in this one right?
    Aubade. Pleasure . Your style is like Brautigan. Does not seem contrived. Keep writing like this. I even laughed .

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney