Poems:Bowser

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New Bones

Image:Poems.Bowser.jpg

Tropical Shade by Nancy Bien Souza
(Charcoal and Chalk)

Early morning shining on the stones
Of a rustic washing board, old bones
Beneath are buried
To the water tap I go again 
To work on the stones
Where Old Bones worked before me
To keep her children freshly dressed
To greet the early morning
I reach to pull out from beneath
The clothes that wait for washing
And as I lift them to the stones
A coral snake, from the folds 
Of my own children’s clothes
Falls on my foot
In one split second he is gone!
Then do I react
I run for home in fright
And when I reach the steps
I stop
The snake avoided the disaster
And I, foolish
Late to react
Had to say “Thank you” to the snake
No stranger to old bones
For being wiser in the ways of washday
Than this newcomer at the stones


L. Bowser, 2003

* - Published at Poetry Magazine.com (April 2003)

There is a residue of light and shade
to be esteemed, I suppose, in beauty poems,
in spite of the hubris to publish
them for market share- 

and yet, amid protest from purists,
are not these words (even the clever ones
that recede to origins of first love)
market share themselves? 

That is if one could break the silence,
avert denial, quixotic in the face
of dread-to compose our own retorts
like romantics who have at least one 

reader: our lover, our metalepsis
of light and shade. But silence is a sore
healer affected in the wrong places 
to punish the myth we give to others 

who come late to sentiment and stop
to listen. Be alone together then 
in the residue of light and shade. Never
mind the malady of the quotidian 

rising in its extreme purples in bleak ages
of ice and wind and neater mould to confute
that our love is original to us, each time,
routine-regular and good. 

Daniel Y. Harris

* - Published at Poetry Magazine.com (April 2003)

Daniel Y. Harris holds a M.DIV from The University of Chicago and is a poet, visual artist and essayist who is a member of the faculty of Lehrhaus Judaica and teaches courses in kabbalah and the literature of Jewish mysticism in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Posse Review, Poetry Magazine.com, Convergence, The Denver Quarterly, Panoply, Shampoo and Deviant Lit are among his publication credits. Work is forthcoming in Muse Apprentice Guild. The Euphrat Museum, The Center for Visual Arts and Dolly Fiterman Fine Arts are among his art exhibition credits.