IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Chris Davenport



Albuquerque Winter

     Sun dreams in foreign cities, Moroccan radio days desert reflection
windmill water sips and well pumps pulling breath to sleeping lungs
beneath sour apple trees in empty orchards along creeks and brooks
between fields of green grass and wheat separate and illusioned before
any Wednesday morning sleeping in on tomorrow and the next not hearing
the cars and autos the buses and jetfighter engines and commercial planes
hauling tourists and tired men and wives and screaming airport heart
beatings, beatings, and hearts thundering through a turbine forced wind
blown holiday, and metal wings cockpit screens and yellow eyed children
tucked in beneath reinforced radar, and cabbies lean inhaling nicotine
dreaming of other days and calloused hands from luggage rings and well
paid executive leads never tip enough and college kids with reluctant
home bound schemes, disaster dreams, in - flight movie screens headphones
calibrated for lsd chewing teens at corner stores and  fried Christmas
seasons,brown lawn grass, dry wind and cool winter dust settling over
rooftops, windshields, sleeping lovers, housecats, freezing dogs,
junkyard mechanics,  wandering new age bums and drifting bar hounds
intent on another beer another beer and oceanic swimmers sippin’ saline
lost in the tide.


December, 1999


Chris Davenport's Questions:

#1  How does this poem capture a season?

#2  Is it effective?

#3  Is the writing mature?

#4  Does the lack of punctuation seem odd or  out of place?






The Albany Poetry Workshop