Buxton Wells buxtonwells@gmail.com Bio (auto) RBuxton Wells was born in Iowa, raised in Virginia, and is a longtime resident of Memphis, TN Appearances online with Winning Writers, Umbrella, Wandering Army, The Legendary, carte blanche [pending 2009] and Contemporary American Voices [pending 2010] constitute his publication history to date He has his expectations. | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Buxton Wells and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Backyard in February The party’s over there was no party I step out back deliberately, for drink with a dozen empties clinking I’m under the eaves of dead fathers, where lightning arcs through vascular trees to thrash in the underground The ground is softened after the hard rains and liable to give way This is less catharsis than diuresis, with bright clouds edged around a beaten misshapen moon, the branches scissoring and parting in silhouette below I am at home in the dark trees, like raccoons in our crawlspace are loose in the wild I would not move against the trees or blaze them on my way, or sacrifice beneath them, but only burn them slowly down with my urine like a crocodile – The ancient trees go down at night when the thunder cracks and the rain softens the ripping sound of deep roots giving, of trunks falling through neighboring arms of younger, lesser trees The downslope plunge is the way of old trees caught up in their towers and water rights, walled off for years against gravity And now they’re dead, my yard gone sliding into them, leaving bars of mud and sand built out from half-buried trunks Fingers of smaller drainages are headed toward the house, to bring it down to a cracked foundation Gaps are opened, the black earth runs beneath a patter of leaves, upslope of the mass wasting, the bottomless give – This month is bitter awareness month I’d choose some other observance What held my attention, the dark has absorbed What started as pain is a tenderness I come back inside, to wife and child, by the carport light and gently shoulder the kitchen door Not that I know what I’m sniffing for, but the old house smells like a crotch The creepers have climbed to the overhang, threatening the house, calling it wonder of nature to insinuate and claim what is natural The tendrils have wound through the window frame in the back bathroom, where I once saw a rodent thrashing away in the toilet bowl I found it disturbing and drowning, too, in seeming desperation Just how it arrived there and how I retrieved it, I don’t recall It’s all taken down by the animals it may be significant, maybe the end of some stellar event, that ends with this house on our backs – O best beloved, remember in moonshine our good abode, that breathed not a word to a living soul, but freely offered its backside to the woods – If the sun comes out late tomorrow, it will throw a different light on the buff-colored sides of our house I give you the book cliffs, the limestone shelves, the iron-rich skein of a red sky In four months’ timeafter a final glut of rainwe’ll be green again, the dead outlasted, overgrown We’ll try the unsuspecting way, let trees be spread wide above us, the ground stabilized beneath our feet The hot breath of June will not penetrate. |
Suzanne Austin attictragedy9@yahoo.com Bio (auto) Suzanne Austin lives in Terre Haute, Indiana | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Suzanne Austin and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author. untitled Your front porch at 5 am Still dark Except for the lightning bugs – the lightning sky Your lips The seventh month Spent in parking lots Of closed bars With ringing ears And hands closed around each other These puddles almost feel permanent If anything Could I couldn’t fully explain the Northern Lights Or the reason why I’m only human enough To watch you pull your leg into your seat As you drive With your window down To the damp air Feeding us And I could listen to you tell that story Again and again Sleeping I hope Now As I write this Listening to the train pass I imagine its destination Somewhere tomorrow afternoon While I’m waking (Radio edits can never be fully appreciated) There are reasons for silent adoration Perhaps So that cameras can underestimate you Perhaps so that A mild manifestation Can become an aged proverb Former becomes present Each theory another wrinkle (Although the static is tuned to D) Each interpretation A distant echo Or an elaborate sideshow Of sunsets spent Poring over words To burn minds With impressions Surfacing from chemical baths Suspended from lines Of meaning (Roads never close up shop) And the nights keep coming on As if the day wasn’t good enough To exist alone What hope is there in time zones Or any other separation Of dark and light Other than rebirth The light from the clock That’s 20 minutes slow Shows me the space I must move across To reach you (Would saying emptiness doesn’t exist be a contradiction?) I am a pixel |
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