Dave Shortt is a longtime writer (from the USA) whose work has appeared over the years in a number of online and print literary-type venues, most recently Sulphur and Collidescope. More of his poems can be found in past issues of Poetry Salzburg Review, Contra Equus Niveus, and Blackbox Manifold, as well as in Emanations #7 and #8.
sets, behind the naked oaks,
what’s mortared into the Umbrian hills
escapes into a few brown leaves lingering
above the animals,
who, unglorified,
secretly groan & growl
as if reproducing
ancient rumors of wolves & lions
blowing through on a late winter wind,
as youths moving
in the sound of church bells
try to free themselves
from the age-old discipline of bronze
the chiaroscuro of carnality & innocence
is impossible to circumvent
as it pounds & tears below an
overarching vortex of
color & form, the sky
like a passionate wardrobe worn
by a celestial Madonna
gives birth to an
immaculately fashioned look that might
make people wonder
the pony & dogs
tethered on their flat earth
are excluded except by a virginal compassion,
in their dumb
mastication as they graze
& gnaw away
on grass & bone, as if
they could ever imbibe
a transformational offer
poured out by this wind
on which magpies float,
let loose on the randomness of
lovemaking &
impending night
Poetry in this post: © Dave Shortt
Published with the permission of Dave Shortt