Lawrence R. Smith


FERAL COOKIE,

Nibbling around its edges,
hard pulse at the temporal lobes,
chorus of shouting neurons
as you sprint down a corridor
that is the rest of your life.
A banquet set for twelve,
next door a frothing rabid dog
eating the remains of its tail.
A search for stairs, but there is
no other floor in this sad palace.	
The cookie is sweet, reminds you
of the time a small hand pulled
your ear and its owner kissed
all the hours of that bright day.
Spices in this cookie taste 
like happiness or fear, hum 
a song you’ve heard before: 
the rain-choked forest 
releasing its opulent breath. 



VIOLA

A viola in its expansive key
overlooks the desert range,
uproots an event to please
the sleep actress and her entourage.
When a puff of air rises behind
the scrim, it tests a page of script
with its idiom of teeth and spikes.

Broken wine glasses arrayed 
at the base of a Joshua tree.	
Dark-eyed juncos don’t mind 
the distraction of reflected light;
they live in an alto world 
set apart for operas of starvation.

Hardpan can be altered to look 
like a promise of wealth and joy.
Bones half-buried there, in this 
maquette of interrupted desert, 
still hold the key to their next life.



ELIJAH’S BARGE

Elijah’s barge travels over sand and stone
with more than a knuckle or thumb of grace.
He traces terra cotta pipes beneath
Ahab’s palace. In the chambers above,
infant sacrifice and a frenzy of fucking.

Beneath the deck, obedient demons in rags,
in terror of his mantle and its holy blaze.

Elijah adorns his life with chamomile.

So many quandaries, so many puzzles,
tests of faith and the bloody seeds of Baal:
each lapse by Yahweh’s children, a wound
in the rusty hull of Elijah’s roving barge.

Who will succeed him when he departs,
catch the cast off mantle as he 
is gathered into the whirlwind?
Who will take command of the barge?

Lawrence R. Smith edited and published the now retired Calibanonline and its print parent, Caliban. He is the author of Annie’s Soup Kitchen, The Map of Who We Are, and The Plain Talk of the Dead. He has translated Antonio Porta's The King of the Storeroom and, with Michelle Yeh, No Trace of the Gardener, poems by Yang Mu. He edited and translated The New Italian Poetry: 1945 to the Present.

 
 

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