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 Mar 2018 Corvus
Jesse Holzinger
Help,
I can’t breathe.
I’m drowning.

It’s so dark.
But I think I can see the surface.
So why is that
The harder I try to reach,
The more I try to swim,
The further away the surface becomes?

It’s like there’s something
Chaining me down to the floor,
But this just feels like a bottomless pit.
I can’t tell how far down or up or in or out.
I don’t which direction is which anymore.

Am I in an ocean?
A lake? A pond?
How far does this water reach?
Wait, is this even water?
Cause it sure tastes a whole lot like
Blood.

Now I remember.
My heart broke, and
The blood just kept on spilling,
Flowing until it became a river,
Or something like that.
I barely even remember how I got here.

But here I am.
It’s dark down here.
But I think I can see the surface.
So I struggle,
And struggle some more.
I struggle so hard that I think
Every bone in my body should have shattered by now.
But they don’t.
And just as well,
Neither do I feel any closer to the surface.

With every struggle,
It feels like I get nowhere.
But the truth of the matter
Is that I don’t know the difference
Between  nowhere and somewhere.
It all feels the same down here.

But what I’m quickly learning
Is that every time I start to just accept my fate
And be still,
The chains start dragging me down even further.
So I know I can’t stop fighting,
Fighting to reach the surface
So I can breathe again.

And no matter how long I stay down here
In this wretched hole,
No matter how long I seem to go without air,
I’m not actually dying.
 Mar 2018 Corvus
L B
I hadn’t meant to spy
just an evening’s walk along the beach
knowing that things are sometimes strewn there after storms
between a gust of wind—a break in clouds

Coming upon moonlight
gleaming on wet teenage backs
Two—
by a leaning erosion fence
fondling the last discoveries of childhood
fumbling with the barriers of her bikini
behind the erosion fence
out of sight and forbidding

Breeding like sea grass by rhizomes
prowling that neck, those *******
Gasping! Warring!
for the land of white warmth below their tans
His hands grip, lift, position, insist
By such undertow
mouths and hips pinioned in disbelief...

where they cannot be seen
two half-rounds in rhythm – struggle in the surge of being

as the surf binds them in refrains
about the ankles
Needing the ocean again.
 Mar 2018 Corvus
L B
Hunting Poems
 Mar 2018 Corvus
L B
They are wild things
Sometimes, I swear
I need a shotgun
but so as not –
to hurt the words

I hack them out of weeds
Break the ice to drag them out
Throw rocks at them in trees

Turn around three times fast
and collapse
Sometimes I catch one
still spinning dizzy
floating circle-words in breeze

I command nothing

The poems always have their way

I command nothing!

Not love –  Not time –  Nor hate
Nor sun –  
but the moon-rise –  
maybe

...in dream-light
 Mar 2018 Corvus
Valsa George
Cord
 Mar 2018 Corvus
Valsa George
A bush lark in the Greenwood forest sings.
She sings all day long near the mountain springs.
Is she trilling in notes so plaintive of her missing mate?
Unleashing her heart of its doleful weight?

Or easing the pangs of a heart that starves
For a soulmate yet to come for whom she craves?
Or sending a missive through the aerial route
Sounding in every ear a low melancholy note?

From the covert of dark leaves, her song percolates.
Through the sinews of my heart it permeates,
Striking a cord between two souls equally deprived,
Stirring in me an inarticulate ache, never once divulged.
 Mar 2018 Corvus
Cné
Sea of Blue
 Mar 2018 Corvus
Cné

The cycle of the seasons
once again presents a change.
Greens and blues are now the colors,
as the scene has rearranged.

Crepe Myrtles shed their blossoms
in blizzard, pinks and reds,
And bulbs with care once planted
now emerge from flower beds.

I walk upon a sea of blue
that waves with every breeze.
Bluebonnets on the Texas plains,
a view that's sure to please.

They ripple with the grass
in tempo with the wind.
How lovely to just sway and hear
the message that they send.

It seems as though the world awakens,
stretching with a yawn.
As luscious grass emerges
from the brown muck on my lawn.

Bluebonnets are the official state flower of Texas. The shape of the petals on the flower resembles the bonnet worn by pioneer women to shield them from the sun. Their blooms only last a couple of weeks.

As an extension of Lady Bird Johnson's efforts at highway beautification, she encouraged the planting of these native plants along Texas highways and are now a common sight in the springtime. This time of year, driving along the highways all over the great state of Texas, you will find, car loads of families pulled over to use the sea of blue as back drops for family photos.
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