Beth Cagle Burt's Poetry
To purchase Beth Cagle Burt's award-winning chapbook, The Fearless Tattoo, on-line, please see www.shadowpoetry.com/bookstore/fearlesstattoo.html.
Won First Place in Main Street Rag’s Annual Poetry Contest 2000
First appeared in Main Street Rag, Fall 2000. Charlotte, NC.
Father’s Waning
One gray day God carried your withered leg away
shrouded in a white sheet, gaunt and placid,
and I would never speak to Him again
if I could beg someone else to make you well.
Shrouded in a white sheet, gaunt and placid,
you read me poetry and essays on bees.
When I beg the nurse to make you well,
she sews me a white uniform to do the job myself.
You read me and assay my busy being,
then warn me that we are weak wretches.
Sewn in a white uniform, I do the job myself;
I wash your pale forehead, whispering prayers.
You warn me that we are weak wretches
as you worsen under my care.
I wash your pale whispers and grimaces,
waging war against your writhing pain.
As you waste away under my caring
eye, my wavering faith yields to wails of prayers
to wage war against my writhing pain.
You wander away, a wreck on death’s waves.
I waver, my faith yielding to wails
that God carried your withered frame from me.
I wonder what kind of God waved you away;
I will never speak to Him again.
First appeared in Sensations Magazine, Spring 2005. Secaucus, NJ.
Mapplethorpe Photograph
I am a leather strap wound
tight about your balls. You are
the part of me that no one else
can be, quiet soulmate holding
my loud flame in your gloved palm.
I lap at your finger whips, bending
into leather scent. A kiss
drips through my ribs, dragging
me into your veins. This love is
pure as rain on a spinning leaf
landing soft among ghost antlers.
Purge this fragile shell of me
with your eyes, devour my core.
First appeared in the New York Quarterly, Number 60, 2004. New York, NY.
Songs of the Brain: Three Days in Neuro-Intensive Care
1.
spin on, absurd brain, you slut
of archaic tongues. what hose
will you suck on tonight with
the drip of blood clots into non-
existence? flush your singsong
rhyme, your chime until i spill
thick over the edge of caution,
turpentine conferred in teacups.
2.
cage your cough in the rumble of lungs;
your laden breath clinging to my tongue.
would you redress the intensely personal
predicament of washing your synaptic toe
in the grass of neverdream? my eyes blur
like sawdust from the wooden horse,
that rickety contraption we stood on
tiptoe to paint crocus blue in october.
3.
i will not pretend to know if you will not
pretend to tell me, my numb fingers bury
a razor in porous morphine pleasure.
why must i flail along the giddy edge?
pluck my sour flower from this cracked
jar before i seep into the mirror
of anesthesia where i have watched
the jackel lick his lips by my vacant crib.
Plainsongs Award Poem selected by Michael Catherwood
First appeared in Plainsongs, May 2005, Issue XXV. Hastings College, Hastings, NE.
Shadow Stalks
He sits by the small window, lights off,
watching shadows breath in passing car lights.
The men are out there, chasing him for two days.
Shadows edge closer. He moves from the window,
almost fading into darkness, but the cold .38
caliber in his hand keeps him feeling real.
At work the dye machines hum long and grind.
Sweat stands on his face as he pulls the levers.
The loud machines can’t cover their murmurs.
He feels their eyes on his back, but the blue dye
is in his blood now and makes him strong.
Spinning around he almost sees their faces.
Driving home, they ride his bumper, beeping,
passing him; bony faced truck drivers trying
to run him off the road. In the Red & White
they’re disguised as bag boys. In Hardees they
hide behind newspapers, sipping orange juice.
On the farm they scatter behind corn stalks,
signaling with crow calls. But at night
in the safety of his bathroom, he becomes
one of them, a shadow hidden and waiting.
First Appeared in Iodine Poetry Review, 2004. Charlotte, NC.
Father’s Birthing
My father’s arms ache to finger tips, and ears
pulse with the shrill whine of weavers run hot
as he speeds toward home and hunting dogs.
He hardly reaches the front door when mother
says it’s time, so he washes his baby blue Rocket 88,
loads wife, belly, and bags, and flees for the hospital.
In 1962, a father can’t hold even his first child
at the hospital. Leaving the parking lot, he pulls off
along the roadside and holds his son close.
He kisses forehead and fingers, and sees his own
sandy hair and baby blue eyes in a restful face.
At his cheek, he breathes in his soft new life.
Thirty years later, his son holds his wife’s hand
and coaxes out new life. He cuts the umbilical cord
and feels more love than he ever dreamed possible
when he lays his first child in her mother’s arms.
In a shaded room, between mother and grandmother,
my father rocks his sandy haired, baby blue-eyed
granddaughter, locked in his bursitis arms, and
at her cheek he breathes in soft new life again.
HOW TO MAKE BAD POETRY:
Oh, Red, Red Rose Of Love, Refrain Thy Cruel Bite
Swingin’ in the porch swing
Kissing like a pro
Judy made my heart sing
Songs so cheery-o!
And the full white moon of love
So big and round and bright
Shown down from the sky above
To bless our happy night.
And crickets sang, chirp, chirp,
Till twilight was no more,
And Judy grabbed my hard crotch
And wanted twenty dollars more?
And she found me a poor sad sot
And twas a quick finale.
So heed this lesson, romantic lads,
For whores won’t dilly dally.
To find out more about this artist, click on Beth Cagle Burt under Editors in the side bar.