Lisa Zerkle's Poetry

North Carolina Poetry Society
First appeared in Pinesong Awards 2007

Rock, Stick

club, spear
spike, stake
bow and arrow
battle-ax, Anthrax
slingshot, sword, scimitar
cutlass, dagger
longbow, crossbow
catapult, cannon
gun
flintlock, musket, rifle, revolver
tomahawk, guillotine
Big Bertha, bayonet
land mine, hand grenade
tear gas, nerve gas, cyanide
Tommy gun, torpedo
Kamikaze, Howitzer
Bazooka, Panzer
A-Bomb
H-Bomb
repeating rifle, assault rifle
rocket launcher, grenade launcher
Kalashnikov
smart bomb, stealth bomb
scud
Ricin, Sarin
cruise missile, Patriot missile
bunker buster, Daisy cutter
air-to-surface Hellfire,
WMD’s, IED’s
shock and awe

rock, stick

 
Chipmunk Sex

You chipmunks
are all over
the yard
shinning up
the bird feeder pole
to stuff cheeks
full of sunflower seed
diving
into downspouts
when I pass
Between naps
our lazy cat
does his part
depositing
the inedible fluffy
piece of tail
at the back door
This occasional
setback
doesn’t do much
to lower
your numbers
Still
I’d never
given thought
to the manner
of your multiplication
until you appeared
on my kitchen windowsill
Doe-eyed
hussy
brazenly chirping
your availability
to all the bachelors
in the neighborhood
Soon enough
one comes along
what would you
call him anyway
Buck
Stud
Stag
Hey honey
don’t mind me
We’re both here
out of necessity
I’ve got
a sinkful
of dirty dishes
You’ve got
a lineage
to continue
If you’re
an exhibitionist
that makes me
a voyeur
But Lord
I could’ve lived
another century
without seeing
a chipmunk
erection

You bear
this moment
of intimacy
impassively
Your lover
leaves
without
a kiss

After
no cigarette
Instead
you feast
on a cherry
tomato stolen
from my garden
I rinse
spent suds
down the drain

We all do
what it takes

First appeared in Crucible, Fall 2006

Waiting For A Boy To Jump Off A Cliff
She Decides This Will Be Their Last Date

All afternoon he prepares
to be swept off his feet
searching for the moment
he could trust an unseen force
to carry him away
the heart pounding
instant
he would soar
weightless
airborne

Back from the edge
she flicks an ant off her dusty leg
wonders if she’ll have to hold
his crumpled hand
in the ambulance
and act like she loves him
if he crashes

Finally he sees her
and blusters
the wind isn’t right
so they pack it up
taking apart the glider
piece by piece
working together
to leave the precipice
behind them

 
Obsequy

for the Grier-Rea house, circa 1804

Unpainted farmhouse bleached like bones in the sun
Wide widow’s walk saggy at the knees

The farm’s gray yard is scattered
with remains of the lives worked there

Empty shell of a pickup molders,
showroom finish consumed by rust

Weathered privy eclipsed by weeds
Trees, mossy and gnarled, lift skeletal limbs above

The farmer has passed on to Florida
pulling fish from the end of a pier

His cool curving reprieve of bottom land
now leveled by bulldozers

His back forty drawn and quartered
into half-acre plots starting in the low $500s

Here Mexican masons lay down a wall
the land cut up stone by stone

Smooth brick crescents surrounded
by trinities of Heavenly Bamboo

A guard at the gilt-lettered gate
screens the masses like Saint Peter

The rural route has become a boulevard
with street lights and bike lanes

Yet the farmhouse stands on ceremony
breathing its last
waiting to be spirited away in the night

to make room for a grocery store

 
How A Poet Wins Scrabble

she plays against her husband;
he’s all about strategy
that cold hard term of chess and war
she feels the words
will bloom up from the tiles
revealing themselves in her mind

quit quite quietly

he aims squarely
for the red and blue spaces
targeting bonus scores
the totals tallied in his head
recalling the blow he landed
in a past round with ‘phat’

leap apple appeal

Oh how the mighty have fallen,
he scoffs at her ‘eel’
not knowing she is willing
to save her letters in order to place
that one perfect word
on the next turn

mop pom mope

on the descending ‘e’ of his ‘axle'
she hangs a word like an ornament
the ‘p’ on triple letter score
the ‘m’ on double word score
in a stroke of literary justice
she bests him with ‘poem'

To find out more about this artist, click on Lisa Zerkle under Editors in the side bar.