Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

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after the sudden, tiring burst of creation: Man, the afterthought. He finds himself alone, lord and progenitor, mouthing the names of leafed and feathered things, saplings and hatchlings, chrysalis and cub and lamb — big-headed and knock-kneed none of them knowing their names, their natures, ignorant of who should eat whom, oblivious to sex. Adam revels in the chaos, in his sole possession of the magic power of naming.
But now the horizon rages with whirlwind, flashes with fire-tongues, shakes with terrible thundering. A heaven-arching demon splits the zenith, its eye reptilian, its formless cloud-bag hung with tentacles, an airborne jellyfish. Its vacuum maw extinguishes unwary birds and uproots trees, reaching for Adam. Its suckers engulf him, lift him to cloud-top. And Adam screams, eyes shut at the thought of too many eyes and countless tentacles. No way to make a name for this one! He weeps at the idea of his own annihilation. God laughs, resuming his form, the gentle greybeard Father, puts Adam on mountain peak, roaring with merriment at the first man’s terror. Leeaves him mystified to clamber back to the garden, asking Why? against the unanswerable. First day of his life, he is seized by a monster, mocked by his Creator. Last day of October. Halloween, 4004 B.C. Trick or Treat. RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page 6 and 7: POEMS FROM PROVIDENCE by BRETT RUTH
Page 8 and 9: CONTENTS AUTUMN POEMS 13 October Is
Page 10 and 11: 184 The McWilliams’ Coffee Table
Page 12: POEMS FROM PROVIDENCE
Page 15 and 16: drifting ghostlike and invisible on
Page 17 and 18: 3 Listen! October is coming! It wil
Page 19 and 20: THE STATE VERSUS AUTUMN RESOLVED: F
Page 21 and 22: NOT YEARS ENOUGH How many autumns m
Page 23 and 24: THE SAILOR AND THE OAK NYMPHS Oak w
Page 25 and 26: then turning to mockery of his all
Page 28 and 29: END OF THE WORLD Not with a trumpet
Page 30 and 31: Stockbrokers adjusted their power t
Page 32: THE OUTSIDER Some say that spring i
Page 35 and 36: oll in this new moon blanket with m
Page 37 and 38: waiting for the bat, the creeping m
Page 39 and 40: I waited, I waited — He never arr
Page 41 and 42: THE ARGUMENT “Two decades ago tha
Page 43 and 44: AVOIDING THE MUSE Silent this voice
Page 45 and 46: The clouds make way, open a blue do
Page 47 and 48: WRITER’S BLOCK For Barbara A. Hol
Page 49 and 50: This state of things will never do!
Page 51 and 52: BOARD GAME It is a game that never
Page 53: CREATION REVISITED 1 According to U
Page 57 and 58: Is it invisible, this imago of Wint
Page 59 and 60: (the fathers knowingly, in jest, th
Page 61 and 62: The does take bubble baths. At dusk
Page 63 and 64: ECLIPSE How like the moon, that sul
Page 65 and 66: EDGAR AND HELEN Edgar Allan Poe and
Page 67 and 68: 2 Moon and the flames of candled gl
Page 69 and 70: 3 Coffined in his sleepless rooms,
Page 71 and 72: One truck hurtling toward gates lik
Page 73 and 74: These crows are not informers. A sh
Page 75 and 76: eside him, “Comrade, what if I cr
Page 77 and 78: And then he will send them away, do
Page 79 and 80: You have become an allergy, an anti
Page 81 and 82: IVAN GROZNI Ivan Grozni Tyrant of t
Page 83 and 84: Yet who are these ghosts that crowd
Page 85 and 86: dust devil’s playground when all
Page 87 and 88: Winter is honest, at least, the bui
Page 89 and 90: all now are only names in peeling p
Page 91 and 92: PLAGUE It is a plague — an epidem
Page 93 and 94: JUST REWARDS WELCOME TO HEVIN a sig
Page 95 and 96: Stalinists and Maoists, Progressive
Page 97 and 98: THE EVANGELICALS ARE COMING! Who ne
Page 99 and 100: BLUMENSTÜCKE The parlor frowned wi
Page 101 and 102: The combinations were shocking as s
Page 103 and 104: ROADSIDE VIEWS It is the way of tra
Page 105 and 106:
RUINS Passing the gutted neighborho
Page 107 and 108:
WATER SPRITE Who made you, this ful
Page 109 and 110:
It draws us, real and unreal mortal
Page 111 and 112:
Time is an endless line wound in a
Page 113 and 114:
A shaman sat here, useless for hunt
Page 115 and 116:
AT THE COKE OVENS I wanted to see m
Page 117 and 118:
I played here as a child, amid the
Page 119 and 120:
Moving to field and orchard, Ben na
Page 121 and 122:
THE CEMETERY BY THE LAKE Edinboro L
Page 123 and 124:
I miss that tree. If one of the gra
Page 125 and 126:
You did not know the gourd was holl
Page 127 and 128:
who lured me with promises and sea-
Page 129 and 130:
In the scant shade of his splintere
Page 131 and 132:
It was you who raised the child in
Page 133 and 134:
GANYMEDE 1 Night after night the pa
Page 135 and 136:
2 The boy felt the tense of lightni
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Beauty too soft for marble, subtle
Page 139 and 140:
5 He summons the troupe of ageless
Page 141 and 142:
The boy did not resist, but let his
Page 143 and 144:
8 Ganymede thinks only of Zeus. No
Page 145 and 146:
10 I like to think of the gods stil
Page 147 and 148:
THE RANSOM OF GANYMEDE 1 THE TEMPLE
Page 149 and 150:
2 THE SIBYL AT DIDYMOS It is a plac
Page 151 and 152:
“What would we shepherds want wit
Page 153 and 154:
With this, the Sybil collapses unco
Page 155 and 156:
enduring the seismic embrace of her
Page 157 and 158:
Yet Hera hesitates. She knows the G
Page 159 and 160:
and there, trembling and pale, the
Page 161 and 162:
3 GANYMEDE’S PLEA Ganymede offers
Page 163 and 164:
a plaything, upstart and crude. Jea
Page 165 and 166:
“It’s really a mercy I turn the
Page 167 and 168:
T H I N G S S E E N I N G R A V E Y
Page 169 and 170:
2 SACRIFICE Before a cenotaph in ci
Page 171 and 172:
(Silt, fish, flotsam flow from Youg
Page 173 and 174:
4 NIGHT SHIFT At two in the morning
Page 175 and 176:
They watch for a long time, wait fo
Page 177 and 178:
An ectoplasmic virgin blushes, aver
Page 179 and 180:
for this night of nights, summer’
Page 181 and 182:
8 SALEM At Salem the burying ground
Page 183 and 184:
9 THE FORGOTTEN GRAVESTONE At Swan
Page 185 and 186:
THE McWILLIAMS’ COFFEE TABLE So t
Page 187 and 188:
SCENES FROM A MEXICAN VAMPIRE MOVIE
Page 189 and 190:
3 Things go wrong at the American b
Page 191 and 192:
Never knew what hit them or how a b
Page 193 and 194:
Who wrote the note? The blonde on t
Page 195 and 196:
T H U N D E R P U S S: I N M E M O
Page 197 and 198:
We keep our vigil against the time
Page 199 and 200:
yet terrified, into the hands of th
Page 201 and 202:
nothing would daunt your interest i
Page 203 and 204:
I watched you dreaming: the twitch
Page 205 and 206:
7 We became one person, shards of t
Page 207 and 208:
It was not done in a daze. The sun
Page 209 and 210:
A T L O V E C R A F T ’S G R A V
Page 211 and 212:
2 We stand about, a handful swellin
Page 213 and 214:
Earth reels beneath our feet into t
Page 215 and 216:
5 Later a golden moon lifts up, swo
Page 217 and 218:
LOW TIDE “The tide was flowing ou
Page 219 and 220:
Then why should a fireball plummet
Page 221 and 222:
In the stillness of museum night, t
Page 223 and 224:
And there, the steeple on distant F
Page 225 and 226:
prisoners un-decapitated, toxins un
Page 227 and 228:
a literary man, to be sure, a lawye
Page 229 and 230:
“I fear the wine speaks now. Perh
Page 231 and 232:
Here Pabodie would say no more, but
Page 233 and 234:
unquenchable, to fall into her arms
Page 235 and 236:
and flying across the parlor to him
Page 237 and 238:
so that these seeds transcend to se
Page 239 and 240:
HERE AT THE POINT Secret transcript
Page 241 and 242:
Those Lovecraft fans are the worst.
Page 243 and 244:
TO THE ARC OF THE SUBLIME In nights
Page 245 and 246:
We are the scourge of entropy. We s
Page 248 and 249:
ABOUT THE POEMS The following notes
Page 250 and 251:
DEER HUNTERS was inspired by a trip
Page 252 and 253:
INDIAN ROCK SHELTER recounts an eve
Page 254 and 255:
SCENES FROM A MEXICAN VAMPIRE MOVIE
Page 256 and 257:
ABOUT THE POET Brett Rutherford, bo
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