CURRENTS

Stay, says the moon­light to the snail
I would if I could, says its trail glistening.

Beat it, says the lake to the eels.
Will do, say the eels, into waveform

of voic­es of fish­er­man grumbling.
Don’t cry, says the nest to the lake.

I’m not, says the lake
weep­ing Styrofoam.

Gid­dyap, says the horse in its bones.
Tal­ly­ho! say moss crust­ed stones.

Now you go? say the marsh pickers,
who once were trav­el agents.

Into this, says the unknown
trav­el agent.

Just imag­ine, says the polar night
from its char­treuse scarf dance.

Yes imag­ine, says the sea
remix­ing the performance.

As you go,
say the hoof­prints rippling.

As you go,
say the hoof­prints rippling.

AIR OF VULGARITY

Winds came & they were fuck­ing full of chainsaws
& chain­saws were fuck­ing & yelp­ing, screeching
in tree­tops brought low by an orgy of engines & blades
mis­tak­en for storm weather.
Now we know better.
For trees for roofs for roads for ground
winds came & they were fuck­ing full of chainsaws
& chain­saws were fuck­ing & spank­ing the sea
& the coast­line wend­ing kicked & thrashed
its tree-lined length like an upside down millipede.
Winds came & they were fuck­ing full of chainsaws
& chain­saws were fuck­ing in the kingdom
of screens cross­hatched with slashlines.
And no one in the News knew what to do.
It was back to you Bruce back to you Kim back to you John
back to you Car­ol back to you Jen­nings back to you
Jack who could only address
his own smol­der­ing dis­sev­ered hands & hold
what was left of his breath,
as chain­saws passed through the news stu­dio roaring.
Which in its own way was great TV.

Winds came & they were fuck­ing full of chainsaws
& chain­saws were fuck­ing inex­haustible passion
until just as sud­den­ly they withdrew
to sil­ver green
skies.

Those of us still standing
drained of under­stand­ing & trees,
with only a pre­pon­der­ance of haphazard
clearcut paths we feared to follow
& for a long time no one moved.
Peo­ple read books.

And then rains came
& they were fuck­ing full of cam­eras & each drop
was awake & earth capturing
in this we were witness
& the cam­eras were fucking.

HOSPICE

no mind but hands
to hold the flesh that falls
in blue and blush­ing endings
as ever were those endings
sig­nals expressions
of rooms of closeness
you won’t look through
until you’re old­er and alone
his notes show gray
pen­cil forests one gal­lon of milk
among veg­etable seeds
and elec­tric costs is him there
in sons walk­ing the rab­bit lawn
then the man of holidays

Sam White’s debut col­lec­tion of poet­ry The God­dess of the Hunt is Not Her­self was pub­lished by Slope Edi­tions. He lives in Prov­i­dence, RI where he works as an edi­tor, illus­tra­tor, and Tape Artist. He is also the founder and Cre­ative Direc­tor of Wooly Fair, a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry sum­mer arts fes­ti­val now in its eighth year.