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© Copyright Geoffrey Byron Garwick. All Rights Reserved.
My God, there are a lot of ways To carve into a person. In the locker room you see them -- Hacked, whittled, head-to-toe, Back to front, sewn left, middle, right. The remnants some seamster joined Glisten with shower, sweat, tears. Recall that these ridged meat fabrics Are the ones surviving. The Impersonal Trainer squints, Stitching these outward signs Into pieces of motley quilts: Puce, onyx, pink designs. Time not only will erode us, It slices and dices Like the flying fingers, And heavenly droning patter of those State Fair barkers Who whiz their miracle knives for the crowd's delight, Dissecting bushels of veggies. The randomly knit logic of Flashing blades and hapless flesh Flays carrots into edible sticks And helpless skin to herringbone. Incising the athletic Y From stem to sternum, From delts to pecs to abs, For final workouts and glimpsing All that intimate embroidery. We run our laps. We toga drape our towels. We lift our weight. We limp under glass-dark rowels. Life maps our skin; We laugh, shrug, cry our howls.
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© Copyright Geoffrey Byron Garwick. All Rights Reserved.
What is the price of winter – All those summers dead and gone? Half the buffet sits emptied, The still sunlight’s gold, but wan. No warmth left to be mirrored In the ice-wrinkled lies of dawn. Then, just when I’m a loyal thrall of gloom, Some damned, scarlet-blurting cardinal Wings to punctuate the tree-streaked blank of sky. Or a six-yeared granddaughter whirls past, Doing a roundoff with – count them – One, two, back handsprings. Where’s the consistency of theme or mood? I want a refund, or, at least a recount. Better yet – more thyme on my cold curry. |
Poetry
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