Like tremulous waves of copper, the sun rises on your face
In the early morning peace
The birds, awakening, sing veraciously to one another, enveloped
In the ambivalence of the falling colors
Blue, yellow, orange, red, and black, all mesh together
In an embossed dew on your cheek
As you part your lips,
Inhaling the fresh taste of the morning air

Belied, you exhale,
Breathing

Knowing.

Blued, nickel reflecting light,
Shining on the Reaper.
Frosted steel
Open-mouthed,
Longing to swallow
A half-dozen biscuits

1 part Copper,
1 part brass,
2 parts lead,
1 part saltpeter,
1 part charcoal,
1 part sulfur,

The recipe for the dough.

Once masticated
in jaws of tungsten
It spits the metal bolus,
And gives new name to grim.

Faith is a golden coil
That fits so greatly in the binding
Of texts that
Dictate a non-universal
Truth
Faith is a silver coil
That wraps around you nicely
Tightly
When times are hard and
Icy
Faith is a copper coil,
Cheap, commonly used and
Slithers, a bronze snaking cloud
Seeping quickly into
Permeable minds
Faith is an aluminum coil,
The easy way out.
Steals from your conscious
What can be found in
Yourself
Faith is essential
Needed to man
And to man armies
Unable to feel soft,
Cotton-ball faith
Anymore


Cameron Bell, Copyright © 2019

A little copper penny
Lying alone on the sidewalk

Rained on, stepped on, walked right by

No one cares about a penny
What could it possibly buy?

it is not a knife
when you gut the fish,
it's your words.
you live in a cabin,
and when you leave the cabin

everything else becomes
the facade of the forest.
my roots are here, beneath
your words, beneath the wet earth,
i am a tree growing here,

spreading my branches
like a dancer,
i am grateful
for the way you **** me,
i am grateful for the way

i die like a fish,
flopping and gasping
for air. i wait for the fire
to come, it comes ever
summer

and when it comes
for
you,
i know the prayers
you whisper;

the cabin never
falls, the cabin never
burns,
and the river
*never runs dry