The ones that hide out
Til late July know their mission
Will succeed—that they will instigate
A smoky smoothness in the mouth,
Compel the body to relax
Into a remembered time of endless
Feasts in a sun-cooked field. Continue reading “The Elder Blackberry”
Author: ROMPoetry
The Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry is an interactive museum where the common person and poetry meld. ROMP is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
Percival
“ . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . one night my vow
Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled,
But wail’d and wept, and hated mine own self,
And even the holy quest, and all but her;
Then after I was join’d with Galahad
Cared not for her nor anything upon earth.” –Percivale, Idylls of the King
All but her
Not for her Continue reading “Percival”
The Wind That is All Things
In the wind that is all things
Everything you can taste
And touch
And hear
And smell,
The salt sweeps horizontally
Across the lunar landscape
Of western Oklahoma. Continue reading “The Wind That is All Things”
Windmill Water
I carry a glass bottle of water from home
When I go out. My well water is better than bottled,
Better than anything of purchase. After leaving
The Great Salt Plains, apocalyptic desert
Of salt and crystal, my bottle was empty. Continue reading “Windmill Water”
The Meaning of Grasp
The debris of white paint flecks in the golden hair
Of your arms is the garbage of love and light
–garbage whose original meaning was a “handful,”
A “grasp.” So I will grasp your arm, your hand,
Your chest, your body, and decorate myself
With your leavings, with your day’s work, and
Fill the nighttime world with the rubbish of worth.
–Shaun Perkins
Nimue
The place where I found to rest was thick
With chamomile. I lay my head against its spongy,
Fragile stems and closed my eyes to the ants
Intoxicated by the scent, climbing toward heaven,
Or what an ant can know of it.
Soft, soft. Come now. Leave the door ajar.
Nimue, Nimue . . . you are not swift enough
You linger, come away. Leave it.
Leave the door ajar.
The air so alive with cold
Strangling,
Suffocating,
All I could know
I drank the wine and listened.
You are too young to know but listen
Listen to each word. Then
Come away. Leave the door ajar
Learn to find the secret jolt.
Swimming across frozen water, chunks
Catching in my hair, my feet whales
Stuck again and again, my arms logs
Weighted by soot, dark and swirling
In the whirlpool my body was creating
Strangling
Suffocating
Like powder
The smell of a rich woman ready
For her lover
The chamomile woke me
My limbs were stiff with dawn
I had barely began to walk the soreness out
When I found him.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 