Horus

Horus

Falcons abandon the field
when the ancient thirst lifts
them to flight

with wild eyes and
arched wings astride dagger-beaks,
like ancient tridents

on the wind, striking
other birds in flight—
wetting the beak—
cooling the fire—

1850 – Rising

Indiana University Annual Poetry Contest, 2011 (Winning Poem)

1850 – Rising

1.
She took the bull
—the breeder,
our entire future
down
the dark trail.

There was no discussion
about mother,
about the guilty
footprints to the butcher.

Father lay dying over
Grandma’s white linens
until he wasn’t anymore.

Suddenly
stew.

2.
She wore her dress,
Sunday’s church,
wading in the river—
watching the men on the bank.

Silently fishing.

3.
She gathered eggs
in the morning.
Warm for cooking.
Scrambled, Over medium, Hard, Poached.
Standing at the stove—
radiating heat.

Humming hymns
to herself.

4.
A winter of lead.
Heavy protestant rafters.

Silent
cold.

Reverent,
tombstone-cold.

Mother burned
the barn in the stove.

5.
The fat summer Grace died—
Blackberries and grapes
Beer and moonshine
Chickens and rabbits

Cooking all day.
All day dirty plates,
all day turning spits—
all the angry ovens.

6.
Fireflies brought recurring dreams
of father
—Father stirring dazzling embers
—Father surrounded by Edison bulbs
—Father snuffing altar candles
—Father swatting burning bees
—Father swinging lanterns in the yard

—fireflies.

7.
I saw Uncle Robert from Colorado
rise
with a full team of horses,
rise
like the cedars do—
over the hill
until he too floated
in-between
the hill and the clouds.

Robert from the mountains
stepped down
to straighten an injured fencepost
and then he drove the jingling team
across the river
to the porch.

He settled in.

8.
Sister Edith converted again.
Sunday church with mother~
wading in the river~
dresses like clinging church bells.

Sister Edith rang.
At last, no longer silent.

*

Five dollars for wedding invitations;
Cordially,
“Robert and Edith”

9.
Mother lived
nine more summers by the river.

Near the end,
she was watched over
by young boys, reverent boys,
sons of Edith, who taught her again
to pick a flat rock,
to hold it sideways,
to throw it in that familiar way
over water and water.

10.
Mother died in the shadow
of the new barn,
where she could hear
young boys laughing.

Up the ladder—
Falling—
Up the ladder—
Falling—
into the yellow
hay below.

11.
It rained the day we tried
to bury mother.

The great pouring of 1850.
It was the kneeling river
drumming,
sobbing,
swelling up
all at once—
rising up, like choir voices
singing loudly, Halleluiah—
taking mother away
in a tiny wooden boat.

God bless the boys who make the noise on the south side of the Pungoteague creek

The words are whittled in-
to woody planks, tethered
to an Eastern Shore dock—
a petition inscribed by one
who stridently chiseled it in-
to existence. A reverent prayer
now notable to the residents
there. Sometimes sung under
the breath, life-giving
words carried on the crabbing
Chesapeake Bay winds.

I sauntered the dock, nocturnally
beheld the sky there, a spread-
open Milky Way—absent city lights,
a different sky; a curtain
draping the heavens in
an unfamiliar marvel. I exposed
my smallness, a wilted note sung faintly
beneath the remarkable breadth.

From the stilted mooring I sang the words,
singing them over a whittled-under
Harborton prayer, adding where I live now;
“…where I live now.”

Glenn Lyvers

What my wife thinks about the American Legion

There is an imperceptible popping,
the sound of a groaning railroad-bridge splintering,
its sagging trusses bearing heavy loads
she knows a single car could never abide.

There is a wanting; she can see it,
the thousand-yard stare, something brooding
below the surface, bubbling-up like sulfur
cueing the cliché of an impending geyser.

“I’m going to the American Legion,”
words that halve her heart in-
between holding reins and loosing to the river
her pressing stallion, still unbroken.

She believes the Legion is where kinsmen meet,
where we talk about our railroad-cars,
where they were made, what they carry,
what model, unit, and number they are.

She says we are a Legion of model-train collectors,
like tradesmen with a language of our own—
always the topic is railroad-cars;
we never mention bridges.

Glenn Lyvers

Rocky Balboas

In southern Indiana
where the flat land
ironed by glaciers
begins to wrinkle into
stony foothills, there are
groves of walnut trees.
They stand together
in solidarity for miles—
their age dwarfing all
who behold the endless
sea of woody trunks
defiantly clinging to
the stony hillsides.

In October,
they drop their globes
like a hail-storm of baseballs,
which bounce into piles, forming
a green carpet that extends
further than anyone can see.

When the tempest is over,
the trees fall silent.
They stand nakedly reaching
their arms into the sky,
like thousands of Rocky Balboas
celebrating the triumph
which lies beneath.

The Boogieman Plays the Marimba

Nobody ever asks why they call him The Boogie-man.
It’s because he has music in his soul. You can find him
playing the marimba in the zocalo on the evenings
he is not menacing children. When he is though,
terrorizing the innocent, he does so with style.
He peeks his head out of open closets, riffing,
“Booga booga, dittly dooga, boom boom boom.”

When the children cover their heads, and cry out for
daddy, he falls in tempo with their screams,
“Dadeeeeeeeeeeee”
“Fapity, dittidy, skittatee, deeeeeeee”
until there is a perfect mix of harmony on the long “eeeeee,”
and then when daddy appears, he slips back
into the darkness, still riffing in his head.
He pops out, and then into another room
with another bed.

At daybreak he changes into his sneakers again,
his “boogie-shoes,” and he taps his foot
while he plays the marimba, rolling his hips—
all day shuffling, riffing, foot-tapping,
until it’s time again, when he pops out to boogie-scare,
and boogie-harmonize with the screams of the
boogie-terrified. He is the “Boogie-man”
and he has music in his soul.

• Glenn Lyvers