|
|
|
|
Best Poems From
LAURENCE OVERMIRE
|
|
| |
|
|
37.
|
Americana
Thank God, the bar was dark
He knew he didnt stand much of a chance with the chick
Her blue jeans tight, make-up running.
Shed seen so many of his kind before
Cowboy-booted buckaroos
Plugging nickels in a jukebox.
But what the hell, the night was young
The beer was cold, and a bitter bleak morning
Promised nothing more than wiping counters
And pouring coffee.
(Previously published in Lynx: Poetry from Bath, Issue 14, Feb 2000)
Laurence Overmire
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
38.
|
Another Cup of Tea?
There are poets
In comfortable houses
Clean beds
Who write of grass and trees and
Flowers
They sing melodies that concord
On tuneful ears
Sing babies to sleep
And say
All the world is well.
Twould be nice to be
Such a poet
To not know and not care
Not really
Not seeing, not dreaming
Not alive, not dead
Just falling
Like a green leaf on a
Summers day.
(Previously published in Apollo's Lyre, Spring 2007)
Laurence Overmire
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
39.
|
Asleep at the Switch
There were bombs exploding in Iraq
Babies turning blue in the immovable quash of rubble
A government twisting truths into the most
Outrageous kinds of lies
The end-game justifying the means
But no one would believe
The long years of children left behind a hoax
Come to fruition, dusty books that no one
Reads, impossible to distinguish the text from the
Con
Old words make sweet bonfires
The world spinning in a drunken haze
All a blur of light and sound and colorized
Image
The patient on his etherized table his
Hamburger heart pumping beer and blue-eyed
Bimbos into the vain artery of his
American unconscious
O, we may wonder, and O
We may die
Sleep the good sleep
Someday maybe
Someone will wake up, alone to find
And ask the inevitable question
A hundred years too late
Why?
Why didnt anyone try to stop
The madness?
(Previously published in The Hold, Oct. '04)
Laurence Overmire
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
40.
|
Aurora Borealis
I looked up
At a black-diamond sky
Crested with stars
And the moon burned gold in the Alaskan night.
And there in the west like a thief in the dark
Crept a shadowy wisp of smoky gray
Barely discernible
Hovering
Waiting
Like a falcon for its prey
Then swift as a serpent it slithered through the air
In a blaze of green-blue light
And it lingered there
Glowing
A strange, ethereal haze
A flash from the east, I turned my head
A flash from the north, I turned again
And the heavens were splashed in shimmering light
Pastel blue ribbons brushed with crimson
In giant arcs did span the clouds
The bold, defiant strokes of an artists hand
Emblazoned on the canvas of the midnight sky.
I looked again
And the air exploded in billowing waves of sulfurous fire
Swirling mist
Diaphanous dust
Cascading color
What vaporous nymphs and spritely fauns
Danced there on the jeweled black
Pouring libations from invisible vials
Their cacophony of light midst the silent stars?
Then the wind blew softly cross the arctic ice
And the goddess of night reclaimed her throne
Her ebony cloak enwrapped the skies
And cast its shadow on the sleeping Earth
Once more.
And I looked within
What awe and wonder
Had I heard with my eyes
And seen with my heart
For everything was nothing
And nothing was everything
But something wasnt anything
As it was
Before.
(Previously published in Pulse, Oct. '99)
Laurence Overmire
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|