Andrew Weatherly

Poetry

 

 

dirt walks on us

flooding mud washed by river

soaking grass, asters, trees,

blackberries bitter sweet

dark with mud

juicing tongues

painting patterns round riverine paths

soles imprinting damp sand sticky soil

They say here in the South, we eat dirt

we stain our palettes

with mud raked by flood

deposited in banks

grown by prickers

stamped by feet

singing from tongues

 

*

 

The North November wind

ripped a river with zigzag scissors

cutting it from between its banks

and paper shredded pieces fluffing together

wobbling downstream like dissected jello

The natty North November wind

redressed hounds tooth and checks

strutting dress woolens from sheep sheared by sharp wind

skating skimming ice lacing flying wingtips

The nasty natty North November wind

started with a breeze up skirts

frosting bushes and limbs

provoking a one day heat wave to whip its hoary ass

and shove that genie back in the bottle

The natural North November wind

chilled out with a glass of brown

to cover its tangle feet and drunken heat

to calm down into a cool customer

waiting for his next act before winter froze his fun

into tiny shattered shreds

 

*

 

The stone gut worm

petrifying delicious morsels

crystallizing them like Midas

soul splicing in cut carat clarity

shitting groaning satiation

gulping wads of air

breathing sunshine into eyes

but the flinty snake sleeping in the blood

strikes imbibing love

of burning oxygen watery light

flinging wings up hills

settling its gorge into bowels

forgetting why and how

dreaming future what

till mountains shake awake

and rocky slithering

stirs

 

*

 

bumper stickers on tailgate altogether read

‘Hand Gun Rights for Jesus’

What would Jesus pack?

Would He consider it more merciful and humane

to shoot a .25 just to wound and warn sinners or

would He prefer a .44 magnum ‘put ‘em out of their misery’

let Dad sort it out

Being into meditation He’d like a silencer

but you have to screw those onto the tip

so maybe not being so abstinent

He would not like dum-dums: those explode

He’s a holier than thou kinda dude

stigmatic exit wounds and all

Those robes would work well for conceal carry

but the way He chased money lenders

out of the Temple

I bet He’d wear his piece big and broad right on the hip

under shoulder holsters might get caught on His robes

Revolver or automatic?

Well, Jesus was an everyman lawgiver

and Glock is too

which fits his light touch heavy hand

He’ll need an extended magazine

to send all those sinners to hell

 

*

 

The ambassador arrived

and needed a translator

stumped tried Spanish, French, German

—no European branches

Hindi, Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew

—no Indo-European roots

moved on into tongue clicking

jumped ocean switching up articles and nouns

to no avail

sign language evoked limb waving in return

twigging out

interpreter said we were barking up the wrong tree

brought in cetacean scientists

bird whistlers horse whisperers

might have sparked amusement

hard to tell

distant chainsaw buzzed through window like a fly gone mad

and the ambassador went pale

edging toward the door

but at least we knew what caused fear

fear became our new lingua franca

exposing the ambassador to frightening sounds

heavy metal, crashing airplanes, crushing hydraulics

assaulted and wilting the ambassador tried to leave

drooping dropping

and we could smell fear in our new friend

which meant we brought in the scent experts

pheromones, VOCs, ideas beyond perfume

the spectrometer told us our new chum

was turning past green but we couldn’t smell

the difference

so in the spirit of friendly inquiry

we opened him up

dissecting, splitting, mauling, chopping

till the ambassador was nothing

but matchsticks and firewood

alleviating our need to continue

the futile effort to communicate

with another inferior being

 

 

 

Andrew Weatherly hears inspiration from the trees, the wind, his students, as well as from other poets. He is blessed to live in the hood, teach in prison, and dance in the streets in Asheville, NC. In between blinks, he sneaks off to make pilgrimages to sacred mountains and hike in the rain. He has been published in a Appalachian Broadsides and Katuah Journal and just lead a workshop at the National Association for Poetry Therapy conference.