Five themed poems by Daniel Wilcox

Gargoyle

Feeling listless
Lestful, full-less?
Gargoyle your soul's
Virused mouth
Washing away the
Frightful germs of
Lusterine horror from
Your throated spirit,
Out of their deceitful lair;
Purge the demoned den
Of your snakeful brain,
Then spit clean.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

'Utter' Common Sense

Have ya' been suckin'
At modern science's teat?

Com 'on! it's normal sense,
Visual at least--the earth's flat.

If we were roundly twirlin',
We'd fall wide or down at least.

Just look about—do you feel
You're standin' angled?

What duggin' nonsense,
What dream-stuff is this?

How are we walkin' sideways
On a huge spinnin' ball?

Haven't ya ever heard of
The four corners of the earth?

What happens to the wild west
If we drive and arrive at east?

And as for humans comin'
From an ancient prime-mate,

Silliness indeed; my wife
Doesn't monkey around,

Not even in my dreams;
Cow down on that!

======================

library census

orange scent,
i glance up
the edges of a slice being nibbled
and pages being parted,
lime after lime,
a blond in a lemon blouse
ample and soft skin
harvest basket, the musk of fragrance
but a citrus face
behind the crate of stuffy books
peeling--
which sense is real?

-------------------

Reflection While
'Lying' on a Bed at a Slant*

We 'lie' separate on a narrow
Marriage bed of 'lest,'
The less said the better.
At least we avoided
The bedlam thrashings
Of our bed-ridden boomers,

But at most we seldom
Became one flesh to the
Point our souls meshed.
We had no bedside
Manner, all 'whine,' no roses
All nipped in the bud—

Only thorns and bugs;
No warm comforter and
Bouncy bed springs, but
Only rigid bedrock and
The thin white sheet
Of ever-endless winter.

At least the poor
Had their thin bed rolls,
And the rich their
Elegant bed posts,

But all we had
Were our twin
Preconceptional
Bed sores.

*Emily Dickinson said to
tell the truth on a slant.

*********************

Collapsed Falling

Burst balloon skin hanging
On this wintered day,
Exited helium dreams
Frantically deflated
And zigzagged down,
Scapled out of all gas
Collapsed husk, flapped on the wire
Of hard fact of death-dealing
Tightrope-thinness,
Aroundness flattened
Hanging down from up--

Like God as sovereign and all loving
In caring control,
Such a peculiar notion,
A wormed blanket belief of wanted words
Not covering our frost-bitten fingered minds
Certainly not our bled inners

The salt—in—the—gash phrase
From cliché hell (not Heaven) like the popping
Of the prized toy blimp,
Worse than when soldiers turned Jesus' other cheek
And nailed open his extended hands,
But we carry our sorrow the extra mile
Of prevail in this ruthless valley of loss.

Naturalists pile up the snow job
Of drifts of gathered evidence
Us to be fluked hominid accidents
Of purposeless selection,
The mantra of our age; in contrast
The wondrous heliumed zeppelin--
Hope's view: endless grace fills all;
But the gas bag dream flattens thin
On the steel anvil of history's action

His-story—another hackneyed word-cutting
To god banal, the idol of worded vapidity
For the broken crock of religion
A rigid archaeological fact;
At the bottom of lined time lays the sheer carnage
Millions of bleached skeletoned frames
Hanging down from the crossed lines
The centered crux despite all
The past's endless burning--
Hope's winged rising.

Author bio:

Daniel Wilcox earned his B.A. in Creative Writing from Cal State University, Long Beach. He is a former activist and former wanderer of plenty of where, from Montana to the Middle East. His writing has appeared in various journals including The Recusant, Erbacce, Lucid Rhythms, The November 3rd Club, Right Hand Pointing, and The Cerebral Catalyst. A short story based on his time in the Middle East was published in the September 2007 issue of The Danforth Review. Currently, Daniel is working on a novel and a poetry collection. He lives on the California coast with his mysterious wife and youngest son. Website: Sea Quaker.