Stu Buck- Two Poems

'Stuart Buck is a poet living in North Wales. He has a chapbook due out next year and regularly blogs and posts poetry @ writeoutloud.net/profiles/stubuck'

causa mortis

I found by my bed

A dried out husk

Brittle and boneless

So I gave it my eyes

Slid out the milky corneas

So that it might see

Cut out my tongue

Thick and coiling like a serpent

To give it my words

I sliced through my ears

Like sweet Vincent

So that it might hear

My daughter’s true love

Shaved my head army clean

So one day it may feel

My wife’s eternal fingers

I located my pulmonary vein

As scarlet rushed true

So that it might boil and bleed

My lungs I gave freely

Fat palettes of life

Slipped into its chest

For life and breath

My insides slid easy

From the slit in my stomach

Into its wanting waves

My brain was the hardest

I cherished my mind

But still it passed over

So that it may think

And finally my heart

My bittersweet heart

Pushed into its chest

With a beat and a beauty

Then I lay still

A husk of a man

While He rose from the ground

And light poured into me.

drain

My breath paints opaque on the drab, teary window

As I watch the umber monster lunk and lumber down the lane

All flash bang glamour and neon safety signs

Leaving behind macerated kerbs of sod and shimmering puddles

Scuttling behind are three ludicrous, papaya tinged workers

Swearing and sighing and singing rude songs

One guides a hose from the beast to the gaping, gurgling maw of the drain

 While two drowned rats smoke and supervise

A simple sign impels a guttural roar from the dismal juggernaut

Scattering cats and waking the village from its bucolic slumber

The beast drinks long from the effluence and precipitation

The blockage soon vanquished by its horsepower and suction

The sewage filled dragon ceases its flames and shudders

Then rolls on down the muddy road

The men follow like chained servants

Swearing and singing and waiting for dark.