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Poem at Four A.M.
Old Mister Death’s a key player
on God-love’s team - a randy,
longhaired, muscled bunch; wild black locks
jamming out of leather helmets.
*
Be keen enough to know
when it’s time for Mister D’s linebacker
to tackle you down. Take homeopathic drops;
detoxify the blood in late age. Eat only
watercress, minnows, ground ginger. Stay
keen in mind. The grappler
may hit you high or low. I mean
Death’s guard or tackle.
(He knows it’s a game.)
*
Be savvy, be shouting love inside
as threehundredsixty moments
swish together and you blink
out of this field. Loose that small smile
(it doesn’t take much). Call out your silence
toward the bleachers: “Dance . . .
all you watchers. Wave hilarious gestures.”
Let the light fade to dusky candles -
tunefulness, chamber music for winds,
the shiny ones. You, in sudden slow burst,
tip off into woodwinds. You, symphony sound.
No orchestra.
Tim Bellows is a college writing teacher, poet, essayist and photographer devoted
to wilderness and the divine and quirky ways of words. Find his Sunlight from Another Day on Amazon.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he’s published work in over
200 literary journals, in, Poems In & Out of the Body (Amazon.com), and
in A Racing Up the Sky (Eclectic Press). His poems appear in Desert Wood, an Anthology
of Nevada Poets and in Wild Stars (Starry Puddle Press).
A new poem, “To a Whitehanded Gibbon,” was recently accepted by Terrain:
A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments.
Email: Tim Bellows
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