Bio: Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves Bonnefoy. He was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.
SELECTIVE MEMORY
If a tree falls in a forest . . .
If a Methodist bell, twanging
at twilight, dazzles your
ear bones while you’re dazing,
is there really a sound?
Perfume that resurrects love affairs
40 years in the past deserves its
place in the perfume hall of fame.
If a tree falls through a vision
while dreaming once again
of your lips like spiced pears
sizzling every nook and every
godforsaken cranny
of my selective memory . . .
ELDERS
If you want some
truth, look
to your elders.
Why elders?
Because they’ve seen
things; they’ve
lived through the
Riding Hood years
& survived to talk
about it.
These elders, are they always wise?
No, but sometimes they
are,
& that’s what
we’re missing.
THE MYTH OF WOLVES
That’s who we are, and that’s
all there is to it.
We’re the ones with illegal .45s
tucked beneath our SUV buckets.
.45 caliber rounds prepared
to take out three livers
in one fell swoop.
Poised to disembowel
the way religion has disemboweled
insufferables for millennia.
Poised to join WWI canvas wagons
overflowing na├пve men in rain
gutter helmets waving goodbye
to sentimental heroines whisking
woolen skirts above their knees.
Generation later, I stumbled into
one heroine’s stained-glass hips
and eyes like twin sapphires.
I thought I was hallucinating
beneath the cover of darkness
on my own Journey to the East.
But I was wrong.
It was those mangy wolves,
I tell you.
Salt and pepper wolves camouflaged
Some Native American symbolism in these poems. I especially like "Elders" for its honesty and celebration.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the read. The myth of wolves is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteI especially like Selective Memory. Congratulations on your many accolades.
ReplyDelete