Jeff Harrison


Tarry, tarry

So, my hounds, you'd fall upon me. You won't tarry? There's no one to see you, no one stands behind a tree; here, everyone stands in the open, they stand in the fountain, or they stand at the fountain's side and then before their hounds they stand, saying, I am your Actaeon. Tarry, tarry, there's no shame where no eye sees.



The fount now bare

You'd fall upon me because there's no one to condemn you. With this hart, condemnation in this grove has come to an end. The fount now bare of all save water and stones, there's no one to condemn you, there's no one to restore me. Had I been a shepherd... And can't I be a shepherd? There's no one to condemn you milling about with a hart in your midst. There the wolf, I'll cry, there the lion; my flock, have no part with them.



And this a hart

We've had prey tell us their stories, and make their pleas; never did one, and this a hart, say, I am your Actaeon. Are we to be astounded, are we to be struck down? We're not at that fountain's side, to be struck down. You were ever a hart, to be struck down; we were ever the lightning, that you be thus stricken.

Jeff Harrison 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), Noon: An Anthology of Short Poems (Isobar Press), three Meritage Press hay(na)ku anthologies, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Moria, and elsewhere.

 
 

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