RURAL HARMONICS

aye, breathsome spruce
the veery alights
upon
then fox sparrow

pine tree does something

 

 

 

 

 

GOODBYE BOOZE

please you to know the 
devil’s in a johnboat

& in hir wee weird death  
the tetchy ones play buckpitch 

or pedro     they ante w/ say
the same love one has for one’s dog
or for the wife of a friend     
the instruments of will 
                            keep you from     

                     o sunny decimals
that scatter the fucking changeable
circumference of being     the will
that says if he buries something turn it over

that same will 
keep you from reruns
of damask     domestic dried flowers
& pictures of kitty wells tacked to the wall

the will to derive courage

for what is courage but holding the hatchet
as the wind scalps the appletree
& the wire of song binds a mouth

 

 

 

 

 

SMOKE TOUR FOR LUNATION

rousties eye the bitten eorthe
west      this unspooled line of transports
curious in their sudden
drag race
out of the cloven moon of the host city

out of the external cloth
its image      which is  
mary henry barefoot
at the pedals of an organ  

out of its dolorous quint suspended
over the television somewhere
emptied out     the tentpole struck

the image not empty not not somewhere

but the weather soon recoiling
so no one remembers 

lest those wimpling shrewes of men appear
late in night’s arcade

 

 

 

 

 

SKINNY

you’re in the rafters
but I’m in my cups

& your face is just this sunken lane 
where a child he picks nettles 

I’ll think of a story
where the child envisions a room

who fills the room w/ code you ask
who pot the bunny     
who drive that mule

someone’s
dark
moaning
moodly
                     to bring soap to the river
wash the mouth of it out

it’ll be like tracing a curved line 
across a throat they say

who boils that river you ask
what water     & who moan

who wants to have killed a man

am I your only one now

 

 

—-

 

 

C. Violet Eaton is the editor of Bestoned, a handmade journal of new metaphysical verse. Recent work has appeared in Colorado Review, Cannibal, Aufgabe, and RealPoetik. A chapbook, “No Outside Force Can Harm the Coyote,” is forthcoming from Free Poetry. As Dowser, he occasionally releases small editions of ‘hill drone’ recordings from his home in northwest Arkansas. He also sells used & rare books.