PLANTING A SEED
(For many people)
In the back room with Van Morrison.
In the back room.
In the back of the back room with Duckett
& Beaz, back somewhere below purple azaleas,
on our backs & on the back of a B&O retiree’s
gold-plated swan song. In the back, on chrome
teeth insured by Federal Reserve henchmen,
aka Wall Street, reserved by senators, reserved
by bayoneting my ancestors through a nightmare
called Trail of Tears. But who’s counting?
Corporate news says when Congress tells a lie,
it’s innocence by misrepresentation
or its last resort: AA.
Cigarette, shoulder hunched, lip down, nose lit
like a rhino in the sooty cavern of a red tin
Christmas ashtray delivered when the couple
was together but now prefers bachelors & bachelorettes
on the lam, starving for the most part, but hobbling
supermarkets, public restrooms, & strangling G
strings Stevie style just to spook the spookable!
Revolver in Hitchcock’s dolphin’s teeth
doesn’t explain our plight, yet softens
the blow. Haines homesteading the outskirts
of Fairbanks & James, well, James Wright,
that is, St. James or Gerard, pick your saint
with pungent concretes & slippery abstractions
reminding us that the mantra survives,
elusive as a manta off the blistering coast of Australia,
or tippling the shallows of a Tennessee stream,
just above that mercurial ripple where words
descend & take root.
About the poet:
Alan Britt teaches creative writing, poetry and composition. He is committed to combining multi-media, student participation, along with a little fun to enhance the learning environment in his classes. He is the book review editor of Ragazine. You can read more about him in About Us.
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