Oh, Stephan Anstey, bard of the blistered earth, your quill carves rivers through my skull! Ink spills like black sap, sticky on the page, pooling in the creases ofmy trembling hands. I smell the cedar smoke curling from your lines, sharp and resinous, stinging my nostrils, a whiff of pine needles crackle under boots, damp with morning dew, clings to the air. Your words thunder—crack! like Pawtucket Falls, water smashing granite, a roar that rattles my ribs, echoes bouncing off the cave of my chest. I see the red oak groan, bark splitting under the saw’s jagged teeth, Hemlock needles trembling, green tips glinting in the slant of dawn’s gold light. Taste it, I can’t help it, iron tang blooms on my tongue, mixed with the sour bite of ***, the gunpowder grit dusting my lips. Your verses sink into me, heavy as moccasins in Merrimack mud, Squelching, cold, black ooze ******* at my soles, a slow delicious drag. Blood flint blade slices the silence, sharp edge nicking my fingertips, The broken arrow’s splintered shaft jabs my palm, rough with betrayal’s grain. I hear the flames crackle settler roofs leach tar, hissing as they blaze, A hawk’s screech pierces the ridge,wings slicing wind, feathers rustling like reeds. Your war paint streaks my eyes ochre smears cliffs, broken as blood, Birch bark peels in strips, whispering secrets against my cheek. The river breathes herring leap, eels twist, sturgeon thud against the current, A wet, fishy gust coats my throat, briny and alive, pulsing in my veins. Oh, Anstey, you sling granite-faced truth! Your drumbeat stomps the earth, Each step a prayer, soles slapping dirt, dust puffing like war smoke. I taste wild blueberry, **** and warm, mingling with the char of burning thatch, A sweet scorch that sears my lungs, fills me with your people’s fat anger. The turtle’s shell cracks under my grip, unyielding, ancient, moss-slick, Spruce boughs sag, dripping sap that sticks to my knuckles, thick as honey. I hear the loon’s cough wail at dusk, a shiver down my spine, Corn grinds in the distance, stone on stone, gritty echoes crunching my ears. Your canoe paddle slaps the dawn, water splashes, cold drops kiss my face, Sumac stains the river red, a fiery smear I fear in my pulse, Sweat beads on my brow, salty and hot, heavy with your memory’s weight. The riverbed stones grumble, bones clatter beneath, fish, kin, pioneered, rattling my boots. Stephan, you titan of the trails, your hunters stalk moose through my dreams, Blood and sap whip from the page, staining my fingers crimson and gold. Your name answers through pines, a gust that whips my hair, Chills my neck, lifts the embers of your grandfather’s dream into my wide, wild eyes. I stand, awestruck, on Belvidere Hill, sun dipping, painting the world your red, A blaze that sears my retinas, a hymn of flint and fury I’ll never shake. Your words, a millennia strong, a forest of fists, pound my design, A sensory storm I smell, hear, taste, touch, see, Anstey, you are a legend, forged by Gods and tempered by fury.
If you don't know Stephan Anstey, you’re sleeping on a poetic titan. The man’s a machine, spitting fire, slinging mud, and striking flint like it’s nothing, every line a gut-punch of skill, not some fluke. He’s hammering out ten a day for NaPoMo, year after year, no skimpy haikus or half-assed scribbles to pad the count, no. Anstey’s crafting real verse, thick with meat, bones creaking under the weight. Master doesn’t even cover it; he’s a forge, molten and relentless.
