Jeff Harrison

The hour


Because you look to rend me, I resented you — it's late, isn't it, to tender apologies. The hour for tenderness struck at the fountain's side; time past is nothing to a hart, to a hound. I can't say that I was struck down at the fountain's side, as here I am, hounds, your Actaeon.



A pard


Here is Actaeon, now that we see anything can be Actaeon, a hart yestreen, a pard today — when was it Actaeon was a honeycomb? He was a honeycomb, he was a fallen bough; a honeycomb, and today a pard.



Red velvet hounds


Red velvet hounds, hounds with meringue, gingerbread hounds — could such delights poison a hart? And what slow poison those hounds must be. And if I'm to end quickly, wouldn't a grove have a precipice, is there a crevasse for Actaeon, aren't there lions, and don't serpents, like nymphs, in their dreaming dream of Actaeon?

Jeff Harrison has poems in all the issues of Otoliths except the second issue. He has publications from Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has e-books from BlazeVOX and Argotist Ebooks. His poetry has appeared in An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions), The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II (Meritage Press), The Chained Hay(na)ku Project (Meritage Press), Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Moria, Calibanonline, unarmed, Big Bridge, Word For Word, and elsewhere.
 
 
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