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.
Comments:
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.
Comments:
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.
Comments:
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.
Comments:
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.
Comments:
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