New Work



A Tiller Poem
Turning the turning earth

Dark, moist soil fills the spaces
between my toes.
Tines dig deep/ dirt smells clean.
Purple sandals lay tumbled beside garden
in clumps of green grass.

New five and a half Briggs sputters to silence
as I brush dirt from bare feet,
unroll overall legs as earthworms redecorate.

This earth knows my feet,
my wife's hands,
my son's small fingers
imprecisely chucking seeds
in rows formed with care.
It knows to give us our lettuce,
onions, potatoes, and
ravishes us with radishes
more than we can eat,
repaying with kindness,
our inattention.

Bryce Alan Flurie



Late June in the Studio

As I sit in Aunt Marion's
maraschino red naugahyde recliner
I learn that summer is a sultry whore:

My calfs sticking to the leg rest
I remember ice cream and pretzels
And her shaking poodle's incontinence.

Jeremy Botts



Absolution in Venison

pots clang
placed on appropriate burners
like incense bowls
arranged on altars
for long forgotten gods.

This food is offering,
and garlic, frankincense.
My family, minor deities
accepting payment for my transgressions.

Bryce Alan Flurie



Getting the Corn In (Before a Wedding)

The late afternoon darkened too soon on us
as we drove out the lane again. Seedbags full
and heavy stacked in my truckbed

I saw you look over your left shoulder
and nod your head up at the cloud
coming on low in the darkening west.

Your worn tractor tires bit deeper into red dirt
and lunged ahead with a deep belly growl -
a pheasant cock flushed from the timothy.

The ridiculously beautiful harlequin suit
- a surprise appearance in the Picasso bluegray -
stiff strutted a beeline for the dense undergreen.

How is it that such a thunderclap suddenly
blankets the valley with thick and strange warmth,
a welcome rapture in the cooling air?

Jeremy Botts



Ice, Water, Steam

Cutting fingers in snow fog
wearing tattered jeans
and handed down camouflage,
quietly cursing briars.

All trees are cannibals.

A rosary in one hand,
a pistol in the other,
balancing out my sins.
Dying in this darkness,
like a snowflake
approaching a camp fire.

Bryce Alan Flurie



Passage

Walking in the woods,
a silver spider trail
spies the corner of your eye
and you gasp
at this improbable tightrope.
Take the thread gently in hand -
see where it will lead you.

In this store there are
smooth sycamores
scratched with insect feet
and old boys' Bowie knives,
tugs of wild prickles,
and the sweet smell of slaterock
turned from the forest floor,
stacked in neat walls.

The salamander smiles with its tail
impossibly black
You think you've found me, he says.

Jeremy Botts