Dumb Fuck
dying in friendly fire
You are someone's tragic supper, love apple moaning
as the fridge slams shut, six months gone and the June wedding trips
down the stairs, who will deliver it now, that child of yours, moths flit
the only streetlight on your street, the one you used to jiggle
to watch go out like a breath.
How were they to know you were in front of them,
your father, your brother, the mother who got away,
the pregnant one you emailed nearly every day? How did you get there
when you left them here choking down their beef?
Look at the gewgaws spread on your bed, the stuffed teddy,
the football, your velvet thighs gone in a quake of sundown sparrows.
They spell your short story, cheap cheep,
how light burst your downy belly, oh Achilles, how slippery
you were on the way out, thought you would always . . . be.
Now the quiet time, the past with the baby still
howling in the blanket. Didn’t that mother of yours wrap you in orange
to carry you from the car, afraid of deer hunters in the woods?
Weren’t there trumpet vines beneath your bedroom window
warning the hummingbirds? Wasn’t there an umpire crying OUT
to the boy breaking his own leg with his own bat?
Why didn’t someone tell you,
don’t wear red, white or blue during a turkey shoot.
by Contributing Poet Lois Marie Harrod Copyright © 2014
VWP 2015 First published by FutureCycle.org 2014
Post Traumatic Shock
"My love knows few words." - Gottfried Benn
My love knows few words.
Knuckle. Pinochle. Gin.
Words of hand and body.
No abstractions for him.
No knuckling down to play pinochle, gin
Just wordless poker at the bar
No dark abstractions for him
War brings a man only so far.
Standing speechless at the bar
No beers of repentance for him.
Cross words brought him only so far.
No puzzling notion of sin.
No regrets, no penitence,
No words nailing hand and foot.
No shame. No contrition. No sin.
My love knows few words.
by Contributing Poet Lois Marie Harrod Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
dying in friendly fire
You are someone's tragic supper, love apple moaning
as the fridge slams shut, six months gone and the June wedding trips
down the stairs, who will deliver it now, that child of yours, moths flit
the only streetlight on your street, the one you used to jiggle
to watch go out like a breath.
How were they to know you were in front of them,
your father, your brother, the mother who got away,
the pregnant one you emailed nearly every day? How did you get there
when you left them here choking down their beef?
Look at the gewgaws spread on your bed, the stuffed teddy,
the football, your velvet thighs gone in a quake of sundown sparrows.
They spell your short story, cheap cheep,
how light burst your downy belly, oh Achilles, how slippery
you were on the way out, thought you would always . . . be.
Now the quiet time, the past with the baby still
howling in the blanket. Didn’t that mother of yours wrap you in orange
to carry you from the car, afraid of deer hunters in the woods?
Weren’t there trumpet vines beneath your bedroom window
warning the hummingbirds? Wasn’t there an umpire crying OUT
to the boy breaking his own leg with his own bat?
Why didn’t someone tell you,
don’t wear red, white or blue during a turkey shoot.
by Contributing Poet Lois Marie Harrod Copyright © 2014
VWP 2015 First published by FutureCycle.org 2014
Post Traumatic Shock
"My love knows few words." - Gottfried Benn
My love knows few words.
Knuckle. Pinochle. Gin.
Words of hand and body.
No abstractions for him.
No knuckling down to play pinochle, gin
Just wordless poker at the bar
No dark abstractions for him
War brings a man only so far.
Standing speechless at the bar
No beers of repentance for him.
Cross words brought him only so far.
No puzzling notion of sin.
No regrets, no penitence,
No words nailing hand and foot.
No shame. No contrition. No sin.
My love knows few words.
by Contributing Poet Lois Marie Harrod Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: Lois Marie Harrod's 13th and 14th poetry collections,
Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press)
and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013.
The Only Is won the 2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems & Plays),
and Brief Term, a collection of poems about teachers and teaching was published
by Black Buzzard Press, 2011.
Cosmogony won the 2010 Hazel Lipa Chapbook (Iowa State).
Lois is widely published in literary journals & online ezines from American Poetry Review
to Zone 3. She teaches Creative Writing at The College of New Jersey.
LoisMarieHarrod.org
Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press)
and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013.
The Only Is won the 2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems & Plays),
and Brief Term, a collection of poems about teachers and teaching was published
by Black Buzzard Press, 2011.
Cosmogony won the 2010 Hazel Lipa Chapbook (Iowa State).
Lois is widely published in literary journals & online ezines from American Poetry Review
to Zone 3. She teaches Creative Writing at The College of New Jersey.
LoisMarieHarrod.org
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