Patrick Theron Erickson

Poetry from Texas

 

Feeding Frenzy

 

Of all the power

it could throw

our way

 

the punch it packs

might be nil

compared to the destructive

capability it wields

 

if this rogue planet

turns out to be

a death star

when it overheats

 

Sometimes you have to

kick the door down

when you can’t find the key

 

It’s high time

we stop circling the drain

 

and start circling our prey

like the sharks

we were intended to be

 

if this is

a feeding frenzy

and not just

the next step

in our evolution

 

or a step up

in the food chain.

 

 

 

After Baudelaire

 

The silver tinge

that lays on leaves

 

and gilds

every blade of grass

 

leans on the clouds

laying it on thick

 

Gusts of wind

make the dead leaves

hop

 

There are no new leaves

to turn over

 

no new nuts

to hatch

 

Floral boughs

there are

 

that wave flower wands

when there are no

spells to cast

 

Such ephemera

as presage autumn

 

predate the riot of winter

and its stigmata

 

like the rot of Baudelaire’s corpse

the wear and tear of his bones.

 

 

 

Baby Bodies Stack Up

 

in landfills

back allies

garbage bins

 

some reaped

before they’re sown

 

some gleaned

fresh picked

 

some just plowed under

still green

behind the ears

 

some pink cheeked

ripe as nectarines

 

some minced

and some filleted

 

chocked up

to fancy facials

 

body wraps

 

exotic beauty treatments.

 

 

 

A Bad Egg

 

Lift up my head

I said

 

not at all meaning

that you should

lift it clean off

my shoulders

 

like a flying saucer

taking off

 

my head

in the clouds

 

my heart

stuck on Mars

 

that I should be

as red as that red planet

 

or a blood moon

 

or a blood egg

 

a bad egg

at that

 

that I should only

aspire to Venus

 

that evening star

that is no star at all

 

in this

the evening of my life.

 

 

 

Ginseng

 

A natural

 

divining light

from the long rain

 

trees looming above

the forest floor

clenched

 

no one’s fool

the sorcerer prince

would have the fist

of clenched trees

opened

 

limbs like fingers

splayed

 

the sky

a flat clear palm

 

a hare

and a hawk

portents

 

carrier pigeons

the prince’s own

 

unclipped

winging above the trees

 

fork-tailed swallows

doves, one blind canary

 

oracles

conjuring the wild man-root

 

amulets

a blue vest

 

jade

for the dark earth

 

amber

to draw fire from stone

 

and onyx.

 

 

 

Pinocchio

 

Though free

to eat meat

like any Philistine

 

how did I know

I was not  to eat meat

with the blood still in it

 

that the blood

is the life of the flesh

 

and all life

drains from the face

in the throes of death?

 

How did I know

she was dead meat

that she had no teeth

 

that her face

was painted on

 

and a painted-on face will run

when the face paint is fresh

in one so wooden

 

and the lacquer wears off

before the puppet show commences?

 

 

 

Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. Secretariat is his mentor, though he has never been an achiever and has never gained on the competition. He resonates to a friend's notion of change coming at us a lot faster because you can punch a whole lot more, a whole lot faster down digital broadband "glass" fiber than an old copper co-axial landline cable. Patrick’s work has appeared in Literati Quarterly, Burningword Literary Journal, and Grey Sparrow Journal, among other publications, and more recently in The Penwood Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review and Danse Macabre.