Author: David Wright

The Batbat

MIDGE, you bitey speck from planet’s teeming fauna,
WRACKing larger peers, by stealth of smallness taking nips.
SONAR pings–you sucker, now meet your terminal bite:
FURRY, blind phantom of the night bats it wings, is on your six.

Titan Snores

APNEA autonomically belies body’s control,
TITAN, self-styled, can’t decree away,
NINNY, (is that you, Titan?), can’t knit up the raveled sleeve when he’s subject.
GAUNT we all, under circumstance, health and numbered days finally outside our grasp.

Ramen Days

RAMEN days, eking by, not feeling it. Then
STAID life, yards, mortgages, or wishes for such.
WOODY ambition can arise to hike among trees, go camping, be simple. Most days, though, you
BASTE, cook in your own need for richer flavors, bar for contentment rising.

A Place in the Story

UTILE, to get away, sit by fireplaces’s
DYING embers, recount your own story to yourself: vast, you a small player in it, yet
ENDOWed with role and place among the characters. Why
SULLY with grasping dreams or diminish by whispered “too small”?

An Abyss Might Open

CLICKs—string section turns from bow, to tapping out our intuition:
TONIC will never sound this work’s last note.
SUITE races to conclusion: one vast, deep, discordant
TOCSIN. The building vibrates, an abyss might open.

Grow My Hope

CHIEF end easily submerged, thrown to margin amidst
SWIRL, the bruising pace of sense’s inflow, reel of world and me.
SHUSH, frantic welter of accidents and trespass!
OUTDO them, Salvator Mundi, grow my hope.

Variable words

AUDIO, medium ferrying truth and saving knowledge,
LUCID words arriving, welling up to transform the arid self–yet medium also of
SLIME, or
MAGMA–not for redemption, but to trap a soul and burn joy to cinders.

Not all of Gaul

MODEL Gallic village de la résistance,
DRUID gathering their independence with his sickle,
TERSE command: Drink up and whomp the Romans!
UNFIT are they to take our menhirs and way of life.