Cathryn Hankla
He Was
Neither a bootlicker nor a boot blacker,
not a
message sent in a bottle nor bottled up
nor a blocker of messages
sent,
in short and in brief and in his fullness,
he was.
Clay pigeons were shot from a gun
and the sound pierced him as though
he were a cushion pummeled with a tapered
candle, cradling as the wax
bled
onto the paper guarding his hand.
He took up a sable
brush and marked
through a number of misguided letters
in a number
of words he was
writing. In the pin cushion universe
he fell
on a sword of words, he marched
on city hall of words, he buried his
words
at Wounded Knee, he died and he rose
and he ever was...
Cathryn Hankla
Transmogrify
Some claim Lady Gaga
used to be a tiny baby,
some claim she used to be a housefly
on the wall of witness.
There’s the link. In the baby
there was a cry that grew into
Rapunzel-like, unbelievably
strong woven locks,
or branches of a
fatally flawed tree.
Legends are for this: undying.
All
unlawful citizens were at one time
Scared. Their terror turned
into terrifying.
The trinkets of humanity
jingle as they
walk. No one is
supposed to guess
they bear resemblance:
the uniformed and the man arrested.
Cathryn Hankla
Under the Mountain
The copper beech replaced the copper beech.
You see only the second tree not the first.
A plethora of
replacements awaits your eye.
You never know what you are seeing.
A horseman rides by the tree, he doesn't see
the original or the
second. He sees only the branch
of the third. The horse exists on
apples in the hand
not the blind fruit that has fallen over time.
Aromatic circumstance of cinnamon and cinquefoil,
you want what
you want when you want it
not a moment before or after. Wait for the
third
tree, remember the second and the first.
CATHRYN HANKLA's the author of Galaxies, Great Bear, Fortune Teller Miracle Fish, and ten other books of poetry and fiction. She teaches in the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University where she chairs the English & Creative Writing Department and edits the poetry for The Hollins Critic. Her book of essays, Lost Places will be out next year (2018).