Tony Beyer


Symptomatic


lost days after Covid
connecting nothing with nothing

my main cognitive deficit
the inability to coordinate

action and subtitles
in foreign language films

devastating for a
Bergman-Kurosawa-Tarkovsky buff

never mind Almodóvar
or the new Depardieu Maigret

too old too fat too slow
but also lost on me



Turning point


in spite of the rain overnight at Shiloh
Grant couldn’t stay in the hospital hut with the wounded

instead he stood outside under a tree
with his hat brim sheltering the burning end of his cigar

Sherman found him there modestly confident
of a change in the army’s fortunes the next day

and so it transpired if killing and dying successfully
can be described as an improvement in things

resulting in the general’s bizarre conjecture in his memoirs
that no power on earth could have defeated the two sides combined

leaving the challenge of one-on-one destruction 
they’ve risen to with enthusiasm ever since

a lesson to the free world on how 
democracy intermitted by gunfire might operate

 

About the contributors


the last thing a poet needs 
is an interesting life

those traditional accoutrements
wine connoisseurship

fly-fishing
or an attention fetching scar

look good in the bio note
but do nothing to enhance the work

think instead about Bashō for example
who owned at best a robe

a bowl and sandals
and a staff to lean

his skeleton on
while walking the Narrow Road

Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, New Zealand. Recent work has appeared in Allegro, Hamilton Stone Review, Molly Bloom, Mudlark, and Otoliths. His print title Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press) was a finalist in the poetry category of the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards.

 
 

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