Peter Sragher: Two Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
southing with the sun. sun never has south. at dawn it drags its red face from east through the cold water, a beauty in its coolness, as if it were blood trying to warm up for the flow through the body. the sun at dusk glows down in the west, far away from our eyes, loosing it’s body in the night mysteries. in midday sun is a yellow sphere you cannot look at, cause you would burn your eyes and wouldn’t see the incandescent raging sun any longer. his face lifts the north, rises the north feeling into the air. i’m though always southing. the sun cannot ever turn south. the stubborn sun cannot get to earth, down, down, to feel my smooth south soul. I will once teach the sun to south, to put his heart on the earth and glide on the feeling.
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peter sragher – Two Yellow Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
southing. my left hand was born in the grand canyon, streaming along its huge red walls. so my hair turned stonered, meandering from the sculpted river stone to the rocks, carved by the winds into mountains. and my left hand still lives there, spanning over the canyon like the morning dew that never sets on the dry lands. my right hand was born in the gulf, near galveston and crabs, shimmering in the sunset and sometimes rages with a tornado, spinning like crazy, and throwing things into the air, and making them circle and fly to the skies, as if my right hand is high only to be high, up there, sucking air into hand and skin, pointing the finger to the blurred hurricane sky and showing the way. is there a way, during a storm, or are there ways, engendered by the whiff of the dark wind? if my american right hand shows it, there must be a way. i'm there, southbound, southwound, southing, soooooooooooouthiiiiiiiiiing, a south feeling, with my eyes burning in the sun on a hot summer afternoon, when the sun has fallen on earth, scorching the stone to lave and shoving it into the earth, deeeeeep, deeeeeeeeeeep into the earth.i'm everywhere, i'm here, i'm there, with my body reeling in the salty foamwavewaters beating the sands to life, yes, i'm there, do you see me?
