Make Rodin Proud
The sky, drips
through a tube,
one drop of not knowing
who to be when not doing,
one sorrowful second at a time.
An elegant flock
of Trumpeter Swans
holds my gaze on the tip of each wing,
white arms of flight wearing cufflinks of dirt,
with nowhere to shine but the storm.
Married to the rain,
in the church of the dark,
if only the mud in the wet black fields
could make Rodin proud,
the swans could live on me.
The Dominant Power Of Gray and Force
Snow berries, roses and Pear tree bend
like slaves to a whip in the dark
Breath rattles the glass. The dream
pulls the blankets higher, above
this body, now a boat, heading
toward the rocks of communion.
Is this why the wind believes in the
dominant power of gray and force,
why nothing guarantees the arrival
back to the depths of REM?
Waking is when I turn to see
lashes on the barn’s arched back.
Virginia Creeper did what it could,
what the old world always does,
holding the wood with rusty prayers
until the light says stop.
Theories of Safety
With pink little fingers pointing at the moon
in a sky Jesus made for shooting ducks,
Abandonment was the first to confess
how the hands grew lonely, innocent and eager
to hold something warm and hard.
Theories of safety were born, and
Power was the next to confess
how protection suffered punishment’s hand
pressed firmly over the mouth, in
order for the words to be truthful,
in order for rage to sound like prayer.
This way making adolescence more
then a young mind chewing on metal.
Between the collision of cradles and graves,
the wreckage of being adult.
Restlessness and Risk were the last to confess:
coloring outside the body’s lines
with pink little fingers pointing at the moon
in a sky Jesus made for shooting ducks
with a hand pressed firmly over the mouth
in order for the words to be truthful.
Daniel Moore is a southern poet, who has spent the past 17 years in the Northwest. His work has been widely published in The American Literary Review, Western Humanities Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Rattle, and others. His work has been recognized by such notable poets as Marilyn Hacker,who selected his poem “A Bethlehem Morning” for an honorable mention in River Styx Magazine. And he has also won other contest awards in journals such as Cream City Review.
Steel Toe Review 