Horses
The
heads of horses
beneath
the heads of horses,
the
if of fish,
the
moment the sun dims
or
when the elm bark calls.
The
white sheets crumpled,
the
numberless stars beneath
the
ceilings of Earth,
on
the telephone with origami
swans
that float across a dark
field,
your breath the air I breathe.
You
recognize yourself there now,
more
pale than hooves,
the
gentle waves rescinding.
When
I Die
Please wake me from the shell of my body.
Lead me down the tree-lined streets as my neighbours dream.
Take
me through the watered mirror, disturb the surface of the pond as the ripples
of
our existence gather in.
Let my cold body ride above the room and disappear in the smoke of a crackling fire.
Nestle my soul in a bed of willow branches, let me sink in a tub full of mud.
Scrape
thorns and sharp twigs against the softest part of my skin, revealing
my
wooden bones.
Let me look up and see myself rising like an imaginary tuft of down.
Let me look up and see myself sinking into the constellations.
Please
wake me from the fire and lead me to my bed my eyes full of sleep and prickly, unsaid questions.
Where
There's A Little More Light
Morning
found you ripped to pieces
small
animals devoured your hands
in
your sleep, the curtain rose for the final
time
and the sound of a chainsaw ripped
through
your dreams. Oh Sun through my window,
your
dream of becoming a gangster never came
true.
You write on the mirror in margarine,
wake
up screaming sometimes, you can almost
make
out the detour signs. Over the cliff and into
the
cushiony arms of metaphoric trees, in the middle
of
the yard, life crept up on you, rang the doorbell
and
just ran. I wanted to be the one waiting for you
after
school, we could have walked home together.
No one gets in more trouble than you, says
the night.
Larry
Sawyer (US and Canadian) was a poet, essayist,
and fiction writer. His books of poetry include MY EYES WERE BOTH BIRDS
(BlazeVOX, 2026); The Blue Butterfly (Guernica, 2027); Daylight
Hammer (mother’s milk press, 2021); Breaking Lorca (White Hole
Press, 2014); Vertigo Diary (Blaze VOX, 2013); and Unable to Fully
California (Otoliths Press, 2010), A Chaise Lounge in Hell
(aboveground press, Ontario, Canada), among many others. An extensive
collection of his poetry and correspondence has been archived at Berkeley
University’s Bancroft Library, as well, his poetry has been archived in
libraries at Yale, University of Chicago, Ohio State University, UCLA, and in
his hometown of Fairborn, Ohio, US. His website is
https://larrysawyerpoet.me/about/.