L.G. Corey- Three Poems

Over the years my work has appeared in print and electronic literary magazines here and abroad such as Evergreen Review, Empty Sink, Poetry Pacific, Corvus Review, RoguePoetry Review, The Poetry Collective, Red Savina Review, Hot Tub Astronaut (Scotland), Danse Macabre (Paris), Kalyna Review (the Ukraine),  FUG.UES: A Journal of Minimalist Poetry, Haiku and Asemic Writing, Snapping Twig, Found Poetry Review, and others.

A MASS OF SERPENTS

Their bite will last
past midnight,
past the present
past the future.

past the old man snoring

and young men hoisting serpents
on petards and crucifixes
and the rood of Moses
lifting up Nehushtan
in the wilderness.

Stuttering.



LANDING IN NOD

many mountains
block our windows
block our vision

not of chaparral
or falling hawks
or the pinpoint
of a hungry raven’s eye,

but of tender leaves
trembling and about to die
the death of all things green,

both seen and unseen
by Satan’s eye
no larger than a tender grape,
no smaller than a point

of no return,
of no departure
or return,

or the hawk’s eye
and the raven’s eye
and an ill wind
from out of Eden

where the crow flies
no more,

where the serpent lies
no more,

and an old man
asks a young virgin,

“Who told you you were naked?”



STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

1.
A serpent tickles my ear
with its tongue in my sleep,
coils around my trunk,
shaking my leaves until they drop,
like dead flies on dead sheets.

2.
Get beneath me, serpent!
Get under the bed,
under the mattress,
under the mandrake.

3.
Reader, I tell you:

This little sleep is death’s other kingdom,
a foretaste of the bigger sleep to come

where a strange sister
(twisting under the bed sheets)
bangs pots, augers sand,
skins the serpent,

and reads the creases of my hand.