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Description
Contents
1 Conversation with Water
3 Fish Multiplication
4 Iced Tea
5 The Next Generation
6 Amaranthine at the Antique Car Show
8 Chow-Chow
10 The Christmas Grandparents Warned Was Coming
11 Damocles
12 Death and Life
13 Evening Dressing
14 Of Beauty
15 Mountain Doggerel
16 Cricket Eater
17 Sincerity
18 Legends
20 Of Night and Flesh
21 Saudade for the Dance Floor
22 Piñata Heart
23 Power Surge: Ode de Menopause
24 Those Lingering at the Top of the Bridge
25 Evolution of a Poet
27 What I Really Want to Say
to the Difficult Person at the Cocktail Party
29 Perigee
30 Shine Shine Shine
31 What to Ask
33 Le Pont Julien
34 Washita River
36 Rush
37 Ode to a Willow
38 Danuvius, Danu Nazdya
40 River Masons
41 Hatchet
42 Rising Above
43 Dreamer XXX
44 White Anniversary
46 Animism
47 For the Man of War
48 America
50 Louisville Turnaround
52 Of Travel and Snow
54 Contemplating Mortality Among the Serenity of Duck Butts
55 In the Townhouse Near the Tracks
56 Aha Macave
57 Dandelions
58 Key West
61 Sedna
63 Turbulence & Fluids
64 Aging Matrix
66 Plimsoll Line
67 Confessions, Overheard
68 Holy Jesus Miracle Temple Ribs
70 Our Lady of Fatima
72 In his final hours
73 Mars at 38,000 Feet
74 Christmas Comet
76 Echelon Sleeping
78 Words to a Younger Self
80 Nothing Less
81 Bocca di Lupo
82 Smoking Venus
83 About the Author
Sujets
Informations
Publié par | Madville Publishing |
Date de parution | 18 avril 2023 |
Nombre de lectures | 0 |
EAN13 | 9781956440348 |
Langue | English |
Poids de l'ouvrage | 4 Mo |
Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.
Extrait
Also by karla k. morton:
Politics of the Minotaur
The National Parks: A Century of Grace
Where to Go Among the Chaos
Wooden Lions
Accidental Origami
Constant State of Leaping
Hometown, Texas: Young Poets and Artists Celebrate Their Roots
Passion, Art, Community: Denton, Texas, in Word and Image
Names We’ve Never Known
karla k. morton: New and Selected Poems
(Texas Christian University Press — Texas Poet Laureate Series)
No End of Vision
Stirring Goldfish
Becoming Superman
Redefining Beauty
Wee Cowrin’ Timorous Beastie
Copyright © 2023 by karla k. morton
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
Requests for permission to reprint or reuse material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions
Madville Publishing
PO Box 358
Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Acknowledgments
“Amaranthine,” Ford Motor Company Newsletter; “America,” TejasCovido ; “Chow-Chow,” Atlanta Review ; “Christmas Comet,” Grub Street Literary Magazine ; “Conversation with Water,” Texas Poets Podcast ; “Fish Multiplication,” Blue Rock Review ; “Hatchet,” Arkansas Review ; “Holy Jesus Miracle Temple Ribs,” Lascaux Review ; “Le Pont Julien,” Merging Visions Journal ; “Mountain Doggerel,” Politics of the Minotaur (Texas Review Press, 2021); “Nothing Less,” “Of Night and Flesh,” and “Smoking Venus,” Southern Poetry Anthology VIII (Texas Review Press, 2018); “Perigee” and “Ode to a Willow,” Comstock Review ; “Plimsoll Line,” Where to Go Among the Chaos (Texas Woman’s University, 2020); “Rush,” Stirring Goldfish ; “Sedna,” Odes and Elegies: Eco-Poetry from the Gulf Coast (Lamar Press, 2020); “Shine Shine Shine,” Her Texas: Story Image, Poem & Song (Wings Press, 2015); “Washita River,” Viva Texas Rivers! (Texas A&M University Press, 2022).
Cover Photo: karla k. morton
Cover Design: Kimberly Davis
ISBN: 978-1-956440-33-1 paperback
978-1-956440-34-8 ebook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944375
To my brother and hero:
General Richard Lee Martin,
who taught me
that sometimes,
the great path to peace
can only be cleared by tooth and sword .
Contents
Conversation with Water
Fish Multiplication
Iced Tea
The Next Generation
Amaranthine at the Antique Car Show
Chow-Chow
The Christmas Grandparents Warned Was Coming
Damocles
Death and Life
Evening Dressing
Of Beauty
Mountain Doggerel
Cricket Eater
Sincerity
Legends
Of Night and Flesh
Saudade for the Dance Floor
Piñata Heart
Power Surge: Ode de Menopause
Those Lingering at the Top of the Bridge
Evolution of a Poet
What I Really Want to Say to the Difficult Person at the Cocktail Party
Perigee
Shine Shine Shine
What to Ask
Le Pont Julien
Washita River
Rush
Ode to a Willow
Danuvius, Danu Nazdya
River Masons
Hatchet
Rising Above
Dreamer XXX
White Anniversary
Animism
For the Man of War
America
Louisville Turnaround
Of Travel and Snow
Contemplating Mortality Among the Serenity of Duck Butts
In the Townhouse Near the Tracks
Aha Macave
Dandelions
Key West
Sedna
Turbulence & Fluids
Aging Matrix
Plimsoll Line
Confessions, Overheard
Holy Jesus Miracle Temple Ribs
Our Lady of Fatima
In his final hours
Mars at 38,000 Feet
Christmas Comet
Echelon Sleeping
Words to a Younger Self
Nothing Less
Bocca di Lupo
Smoking Venus
About the Author
Conversation with Water
We come to you gently enough,
our clever mathematicians
sizing up
the circumference of a baby’s head,
the depth of a keel,
the heft of a truck—
with only six inches, we can lift steel
like a barbell.
We don’t like Styrofoam or plastics;
we have no taste for wood.
But humans intrigue us:
finless, gill-less,
taunting our power in submarines,
casting chemicals into our great open mouths.
Yes, we are angry,
fists of current holding your ankles
like jealous mermaids,
hissing in waterspouts,
open-handed slaps of waves
against your boat.
But in rain, we are terrified—
abandoned, separated,
rushing, taking everything with us
in our panic down to sea level;
we must always find our own .
Draw a bucket up from the river—
it’s all about the escape, the spill,
but captured in a cup, we’re calm,
knowing the human is 60% water,
holding the light till we are swallowed.
But enter you humans:
you curious, unpredictable, fitful creatures
who try to tame us
with chlorine and cement.
We know all your secrets.
Each word you’ve uttered is still held
in our liquid space;
your screams never stop vibrating
and make the minnows nervous.
When you step in the ocean,
we come licking, calculating, watching.
You may have your way with us
up to your chin,
but we wield all the power
in that one tiny inch
above your nose.
Fish Multiplication
Then he took the five loaves and the two fish in his hands, and, looking up to Heaven, he thanked God, broke the loaves and passed them to his disciples who handed them to the crowd. Everybody ate and was satisfied.
—Matthew 14:13-21
He drove in, early morning,
unassuming in his white pickup,
stopping at the river,
raising that holding tank lid,
then pulling out a smaller tank
to open in the water.
Curious, I crept up
to witness this stocking of trout,
surprised that the fish didn’t scatter—
but turned together, heads first,
as though stunned at the feel
of currents
stroking their speckled bodies
for the very first time,
moments later, disappearing.
Hundreds of fishermen
wade this river every day,
their catch, limp on a string
like thin, silver bananas,
so many hungers sated.
I hope when they pull their chairs
up to the table, they taste
the prayer of thanks
that flowed through those gills,
God, smiling in his white baseball cap,
driving quietly out of town.
Iced Tea
We always knew this day would come,
just not this afternoon,
on his birthday.
You cannot lift him anymore.
It’s time to move him to a place
with cold floors,
and industrial cleansers,
and faces stranger than ours
counting his pills,
wheeling him to breakfast.
How many years have we sat around
this same wooden table,
iced teas in hand
to reckon these difficult decisions?
Always in the same chairs,
grim words clamping our throats
as you get up to fetch the coasters—
one under each glass
to catch the weeping.
The Next Generation
Not knowing the spring of 1980
would be the worst drought
in the history of Texas,
my father sod an entire acre.
It was my job to water.
Every day, hose in hand,
I stood in those young sprouts
barefoot,
69 days over 100 degrees
browning my skin through my shirt.
I put the hose on my head,
letting water coil down my body—
a human rain-chain
into each little square tuft.
Four hours a day I watered,
our well, deep and new.
I remember that summer now,
the record waiting to be broken,
the only green things left:
sweet potato vine,
aloe vera, and mint—
little pockets of earth still giving back,
remembering
a girl who labored
for the common grass—
the way she praised each running root,
her toes embracing
those tiny shoots of green.