Spring 2008, Volume 4

Poetry by Jerry Garcia


Lexicon

My dream of words

At war in the cerebral forest
idioms explode into shrapnel,
words clash with branches,
small-legged animals dodge punctuation
and break ranks as the ground opens

to swallow the ashes of my wounded rhyme.
I stand naked at the window,
watch letters build
into well-dressed phrases
and attack like arrows.
I have not the muscle
to counter this assault.

I have become an old man
curled over rough hewn tables,
scratching rambling nonsense onto yellow tablets,
each stroke chafing wits
like abrasions in my mind.

In the cold, my speech freezes,
my blue winter skin jackets the forest trees,
I wrinkle and harden with the bark.


On Persephone's Travel Day

When I awoke this morning
my eyes opened freely

The rising sun had evaporated
the gray swirl of shipwreck dreams

I whistled into the shaving mirror
the shower stayed hot through my ablutions

City traffic had been dismissed
I did not spill coffee on my shirt

The phones did not ring
My heart did not stop

Oh Gods due praise and Gods who damn
preserve this day in the Bullfinch of my life.

For surely the hell that froze over today
will have thawed by the time I wake tomorrow.


BIO:  Jerry Garcia is a poet, photographer, filmmaker and native of Los Angeles. His poetry and photography have been seen in Andwerve, Lily: Literary Review, poeticdiversity, Lounge Lit Anthology, and The November 3rd Club. He has read in the Newer Poets/ALOUD Series at the Los Angeles Public Library and has also been a featured writer at Beyond Baroque, The World Stage, Rhapsodomancy and Skylight Books. He serves as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets and art editor for www.poeticdiversity.org.