I have lived in Phoenix since 1978 when I moved from Vienna, Austria. Born in Austria, I grew up in Manchester, close to rain and the northern English industrial zone. In my early 20s I went to live in Vienna and from there enjoyed many trips around Europe, often as an artist working in watercolor. My poems have appeared in Slipstream, Skidrow Penthouse, and Poem, among others, and my Selected Poems appeared in 2014 from FutureCycle Press. http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com
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​Rainforest by Flashlight


The suspension bridge sways
between the weight of the clouds
and the river’s chattering voice.
At its far end, a leaf
as tall as a man and twice as wide
turns to grant entry
to the forest.
          North and east
mean nothing here; only the calls
of frogs indicate direction
and the darkness parts to let sound
through. A tiny snake’s head
floats at the end of a spine
running straight from a branch
so slender it bends
to the touch of a breath.
            A katydid
turns into a leaf that turns back
into a katydid. A harlequin beetle
shows its intricate symmetry
before resuming an imbalanced walk
on the uneven ground
while a snail eater climbs by a black,
then a white, then a black band
up a stem that never ends.
               It’s dark
enough to hear a spider pluck
the indestructible strings on her web
while soft, wet moss grows on every passing
minute of the night.
                   
(First appeared in Pudding Magazine)

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After the Rainforest

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Whatever is here keeps changing: insects
turn into leaves; the leaves
become ants; the ants turn into red mounds
that burn into the ground, and the rain
that falls on everything              
turns into trees.
               It all happens
so quickly, that while you are watching
a branch hanging in front of you
becomes an insect so large
you could take it in both hands, or
the eye beneath a fern
floats away on a breath with wings.
And you,
     who came here without knowing
what you would find,
return to your other world
with the ancient strength of animals
in your every step.

(First appeared in Abbey)

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Rainforest Time


When the frogs stop calling
the cicadas begin
and monkeys hang from the rain
that drowns out the sounds
a wood-wren makes
as it slips past a vine that began
to grow two hundred years ago.
    
There’s barely space for all
the leaves that want to grow here
from the fleshy to the frayed ones
and the ones that narrow
to a point on which
a drop of moisture hangs

like a minute ready to fall
from the tree of time
when nobody is counting.

(First appeared in Front Window)

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​Tortuguero Morning

The trees stare into the broken surface
of the water. Lianas
tie clouds to the earth, and the rain
is a forest hanging from the sky.

(First appeared in Brevities)