February 2019
I'm a global food security/hunger specialist. My fourth collection, Undone, was published in 2018 by FootHills Publications. On Facebook at Poetry X Hunger.
Undone
If I unteach my kiss or unwake my morning
and star the days that rise beyond
If I reach back to where the newness lives
and firsts flowed by
If I undo my done-ings
and near the point of dreaming
Get there and then come back to now
with any gathered loops or straw long gone
If I but ever.
If I return to us
and unteach my kiss or untime my shirt
or unhum arrows
If I begin again all over
If I act like onions do in Autumn
and love surprise as if it plunked the surface
If I unteach my lips to dwell
and if all that or more becomes
my taken for granted
If I unteach my kiss
If I unlearn my every now of you
to swim.
Foolish as Dawn
Teenagers should sit here at least once
They deserve this chance early on
Out on the powder road to Kisumu
Up on a tasseled bus as foolish as dawn
When there are just barely people passing on mist
When African trees hum half asleep
and breakfast is somewhere under pillow
Let the window show them
Growing up requires this tangled calm of waking
This morning’s jolt of haze
The hissing sighs of tribesmen
Teenagers need this seat to turn fidgets into dreams
They need this seat behind a postcard’s sheen
They should see the day’s first rays smeared on buzzards
At the outset times like this are rare
Wild pups know it lined up against the sunrise, waiting
So do millet seeds furrowed in moonlight, waiting
And even this old road
Dew-lit and toothless
Takes its chances out on crumbling ledges
Roaring waiting for a bony view
Render
Dear you
Dearest long train at night and pencil
Dear pushed up sleeves and purpose
Dear dear journey and leaving –
Don’t you know that
The cold branches of distance
This paragraph of miles
or the eyes of such going
Aren’t enough or ever could be
For this who letter
Even if you could imagine three brave words over the sound of tracks
And through wonders of ice
There still wouldn’t be the kind of daring alive that’s
must needed
For this day-done message to you
Because what’s far away clear
Is less so close by -
In fact maybe circling back is the answer -
Maybe not saying is the best saying of all
So if when you get this from me
If you do
I hope it will almost make you
Stand up so much that
You’ll need to sit down.
Undone
If I unteach my kiss or unwake my morning
and star the days that rise beyond
If I reach back to where the newness lives
and firsts flowed by
If I undo my done-ings
and near the point of dreaming
Get there and then come back to now
with any gathered loops or straw long gone
If I but ever.
If I return to us
and unteach my kiss or untime my shirt
or unhum arrows
If I begin again all over
If I act like onions do in Autumn
and love surprise as if it plunked the surface
If I unteach my lips to dwell
and if all that or more becomes
my taken for granted
If I unteach my kiss
If I unlearn my every now of you
to swim.
Foolish as Dawn
Teenagers should sit here at least once
They deserve this chance early on
Out on the powder road to Kisumu
Up on a tasseled bus as foolish as dawn
When there are just barely people passing on mist
When African trees hum half asleep
and breakfast is somewhere under pillow
Let the window show them
Growing up requires this tangled calm of waking
This morning’s jolt of haze
The hissing sighs of tribesmen
Teenagers need this seat to turn fidgets into dreams
They need this seat behind a postcard’s sheen
They should see the day’s first rays smeared on buzzards
At the outset times like this are rare
Wild pups know it lined up against the sunrise, waiting
So do millet seeds furrowed in moonlight, waiting
And even this old road
Dew-lit and toothless
Takes its chances out on crumbling ledges
Roaring waiting for a bony view
Render
Dear you
Dearest long train at night and pencil
Dear pushed up sleeves and purpose
Dear dear journey and leaving –
Don’t you know that
The cold branches of distance
This paragraph of miles
or the eyes of such going
Aren’t enough or ever could be
For this who letter
Even if you could imagine three brave words over the sound of tracks
And through wonders of ice
There still wouldn’t be the kind of daring alive that’s
must needed
For this day-done message to you
Because what’s far away clear
Is less so close by -
In fact maybe circling back is the answer -
Maybe not saying is the best saying of all
So if when you get this from me
If you do
I hope it will almost make you
Stand up so much that
You’ll need to sit down.
Undone first appeared in Poets & Artists.
Foolish as Dawn first appeared in Arizona Literary Magazine.
Render first appeared in Beyond Bones.
© 2019 Hiram Larew
Foolish as Dawn first appeared in Arizona Literary Magazine.
Render first appeared in Beyond Bones.
© 2019 Hiram Larew
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