Page 9 of 12 Duel, Late Summer, Old Pasture, Supersonic, Oil Rich: poems by Roy Carnon



Poem: "Duel" by Roy Carnon

We lived
under twin trees
hearts held handfast
bark branded,
cut to wilful origins.
Healed youth-strong --
each scar
in sealed the germ
of destruction.
Laughter of trees
does quickly
stifled in leaves
revealing a wound
congealed.

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Poem: "Late Summer" by Roy Carnon

I have returned from the dead planet
to this late summer
where listless glimmerings
laze and warm a wandering breeze
and oaks still sentinal
the spine of beauty's boundary.

Now all I hear are gentle garden sounds --
the prip as broom pods
burst soft-warmed on air,
the slight chunk-pheasant-chortle,
blue-burr that distances the downs --
the dream of trees,

and watch impotent from my chair
on the dead planet.

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Poem: "Old Pasture" by Roy Carnon

Now I watch
In my own time
Within the confines of the time
You draw
Upon the earth you knew
So well.

I see
The seasons
Harnessed in their reasons
Choose
With dung and rain and clay
To graze upon eternity.

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Poem: "Supersonic" by Roy Carnon

Once you have switched to afterheat
there is no returning --
the beacon flashes
a high pitched warning
lost in assurance of smooth expanse.

Once you have distanced the hypnotic sun
the static cell admits
no barrier to the screaming silence;
within an inch the earth is reeling
a collision course reaction
back to the sanctuary of sound.

A relationship exists --
omitting time from penultimate design.

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Poem: "Oil Rich"

Where camels and cadillacs jostled
a bright wing flashes the duned horizon.
But here a hollow shadow cringing from the sun
dapples its futile camouflage
on bones sewn tight in their bags of skin
and breasts ;imp with the dull stare of sweat.

By dung walls mortared with the spittle
of a dark people,
eyes smoulder in bright despair.

We who once were gods have lost our potency,
our who once creed buried in blank pollution --
a cast-off culture rusts the sand.

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