by Jayson Iwen
.2.4.1
Many a potentially great man Has languished in little times
Of peace & likewise dithering So dangerous to the great constitution
They wither into death & dissipation Only a soul senseless as a weed
Could weather time that needs No more than patience
The company of crickets Makes abundantly clear
History is no more Than an expansion of the present
As the distance before us The grandeur of the horizon
Is merely more Of where we already are
.2.4.2
Like a skinned man Set ablaze by the wind
Logic sets in A seemingly ethereal excretion
Deposited in your head From where does it come
Like a prostitute looking back To say, welcome to the club
Inside a sphere of infinite dimension Everywhere is the center
Midnight is blue is a garden wall Is the metaphoric nature of All
Black locusts trembling with wildlife Why do I love you so
What is that declension in your eye As if I were
.2.4.3
Every thing vigilantly Evaluating every other
Hawk on a lamp post Spider on a sleeping lip
Drone floating over an orchard Where I lay dreaming
I bet my life on one life And lost
The sun rose up a thread Before leaving
The spider drew from herself Looked in on my parents
Into being Asleep within my walls
Sunlight Before even walls or I
.2.4.4
Every day a man walks the horizon That can be seen from the center of town
Occasionally encountering on a hill At the edge of cultivation
Another man walking another horizon Who points at the fields & asks
How do you survive in that wilderness The other asks the same of the trees
Every day a man walks the horizon And finds there another man
Who asks if he’s seen the end of the world Yes, he says, I go there every day
And what do you see Sometimes I see you
They drove us to this possibility So they can talk about it when we’re gone
Ovenbird Poetry 