Daniel Wilcox- Three Poems

Starbacked

Starbacked night, coffee-drunk sky;

rows of cars meet

at the red orb,
anonymous

a lone skateboarder foot-tricks

waiting for the flash to sage green,

his board-wheeler a bill of adding

getting a toehold

from the faceless

hidden in their auto glass

street

fathomless

when all dreams night

into marred perception

Marathon Gunner

Marathon gunner in the fast lane
Hastening faster and faster,
You that break the home barrier but
Hang in the void of the morning's dash

Held back by the hog of the rush,
Fidgeting the taillights'
Gating hurry to the 6th power
While your family's lives asteroid by;

Slow up by the lush garden side
And smell the satined moments;

Pleasing is the scented bask
In the warm temporariness
Of fleeting ephemeral's harvest;

Shelter under Life's tree,
Tasting the clustered presence
And the fruitage of your offspring.

Lay down the bulging semi of yet to be driven
That Sisyphean hauling up never's pass,

Up the mountain of perpetual regress
And stroll in the rainbowed 'midst'
Of the infinite trees of brief

Up the lightly leaved path
Welled in the soft shading of Now,
Oh needful son.

First published in La Fenetre InternationalLiterary Magazine, France

Night Watch Psalm
 

Walled granite
Moonlight
One mile
Down

Below the rocked rim
In the rusted Canyon
Rushing Colorado

River russet copper;
Nearby in the evened dusk

I lay ‘stilled,’ a silent psalm
In the shine
Of that lighted granite

Eyes wide in the dawn
Of that Night


First pub. in The Cherry Blossom Review

Brief Bio: Daniel's meandering lines have appeared in many magazines in the United States, Canada, and overseas including Contemporary American Voices, Write Room, Word Riot, Mouse Tails Press, Mad Swirl, Ascent Aspirations, Fish Food, Poetry Pacific, The Greensilk Journal, and Counterexample Poetics.

Before that Daniel journeyed through the University of Nebraska, Cal State University, Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Arizona, and Palestine/Israel. He now lives on the central coast of California with his quilting wife.