September 2015
I am an English professor at a two-year college where I teach writing (creative and expository) and literature. My poetry has appeared in a number of small magazines, and I have two poetry chapbooks, That’s the Way the Music Sounds, from Finishing Line Press (2009), and Talking to the Mirror, from The Last Automat Press (2010). In addition to loving poetry, I have written a mystery novel, Shadow Notes, which will be published next spring by Barking Rain Press. I live with another English professor and poet, Dr. Van Hartmann, and would rather be rich than famous. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
Threnody
in honor of Cleve Gray’s beautiful painting series,
The Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, Purchase, NY
Its monumental figures refuse me,
surround me in this cathedral.
The shadows writhe
while one red figure flames
in this theatre to the dead,
of the dead,
theirs and ours,
then and now.
Shimmering black, sacred space.
Here, all the colors
of longing and lamentation
spark and explode
among our darknesses.
©2015 Laurel Peterson