Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Jack T. Marlowe- Two Poems

still life with sunflower
by Jack T. Marlowe

o yellow
corpse of
summer

roadside 
martyr
now re-
born on
a kitchen
table

a mere
parasol
for coffee
and cig-
arettes

your sad
petals
begin to
shed the 
pretense
of light

but the
flies still
love your
fading
sunset
face

and your
killer
faithfully
tends

to your

yet

undying

thirst


big dreams, small change
by Jack T. Marlowe

wanderlust:
you can
domesticate
that big dog
but the wild
yearning for
the open road
cannot be
bred out of
his genes

sniffing at
the tracks of
freedom, his
instincts urge
him to follow

but he is made
obedient by
insufficiency
a short leash
held by
the tight fist of
responsibility

his master's
voice is not
reassuring
it is not
consolation
it is imbalance:

the deficit
between
big dreams
and
small change

between
the bark of
have and
the bite of
have not

the big dog's
ears droop
his tail
does not
wag

he digs
holes in the
ground of
obligation
and buries
the bones of
his dead
aspirations

perhaps
another day
he thinks
i will dig them
back up and
chew on them
for awhile


bio:

Jack T. Marlowe is a gentleman rogue from Dallas, TX.  A writer
of poetry and fiction and a veteran of the open mic, his work has
appeared in Handful of Dust, Visceral Uterus, Red Fez, Thunder
Sandwich, Napalm and Novocain, Underground Voices and else-
where. Jack is also the mad editor of Gutter Eloquence Magazine

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