Four Poems by Joseph V. Milford

Secret Worlds Are Hidden In Such Places
 
in the fading coolness of the other side of the pillow
 
in the small of a woman's back, under the golden peach fuzz there
 
in the syntax of an almanac whose culture of ziggurat has perished
 
under something heavy falling right before the impact crushes it
 
in the sinking Atlantis of your eye after I tell you of the lost continent
 
in silver itself—between the ridges of the most base coin's edges
 
between a hair and a hairsbreadth and a moment's acquiescence
 
between the spinning blades of the engine fans on any highway
 
between sternum and backbone the unchartable mesa
 
between two sand grains an infinite cornucopia
 
the electric world hidden there between membranes
 
I lean down let my ear hover over a pool of quiet water






Tragicomedy

I don't need any manna I just need some sleep.
 
I probably lose things in the bargains of necessities
 
or niceties, which I think are like hawks hovering above highways.
 
Mainly, I want to show you my monsters and still have a decent
 
afternoon.  This is not possible, especially when the hydra
 
asks nine questions of you, and your answers are decapitated.
 
I spit no venom—my greatest sin is making family of people
 
who I never asked if I could do so. Then, I sit at the keyboard
 
cajoling a universe in me, like a lawyer making a plea to a higher power.
 
Just because you didn't know any better or you meant better
 
doesn't mean you didn't foul up something as simple as ice-cream.





Lure
 
I was always afraid as a boy
That when my father cast out
 
He would tear out my eye with the hook.
As an adult, I thought of this
 
In some Freudian way—some fear I had
Of him hurting me or going away
 
Or I was bad at fishing if he ever hooked
Me. That is what I thought. It would have been,
 
Of course, my fault.
Those hooks we all have in our lips
 
Twine dangling from them in life,
Those stories obvious to anyone who kisses us.
 
Now I know new secrets--
My father never needed to rend my eyes.
 
I was the fish he longed for—the self
Of casting—the rip and rod and reel
 
And abandon—how he thrust into my mother
With love or not—how he swam away
 
From us and her through weed and keg.
And I know now that those hooks were for
 
Ripping out my eyes; they were for
Making new lures, new orbs
 
For this brazen flotilla I ride towards
His hospital canoe.
 
I was always afraid as a boy
That when my father cast out
 
He was never coming back home,
And he didn’t.
 
And I didn’t.
And West Point Lake dried up.
 





Magnolia Climbing
 
You say pendulum
I say leaf on end of spider-spit sways
You say compass
I say pine needle in puddle near iron ore
You say astrolabe and sextant
I say circle of pear’s rump on triangular shale shard
You say padlock
I say the lips of the chameleon
You say computer
I say beehive
You say combustion engine
I say child on sugar
You say why
And I see a because in nothing special
You say mandala
I say “duh”
You say electric guitar
I say quasar harp
We tend to mistranslate when we argue a lot
Or argue over mistranslations like ergot
Festering about to cause mass hallucinations
You say skyscraper
I say ziggurat
You say catapult
I say crackerjack
Your whole life
You tried to break out of the snowglobe
(Guess what--the confetti is all over us)
My whole life
I burrowed under the snow
Looking for utopia
Who knew you would show up
At the same time as me
With a pinecomb of history
As I held a ruddy pear of poetry
We immediately kissed
And then went running across the planet
Looking for good climbing-trees


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Bio: Joseph Victor Milford is a Professor of English and a Georgia writer. His first collection of poems, Cracked Altimeter, was published by BlazeVox Press in 2010. He is the host of The Joe Milford Poetry Show, a co-founder of BACKLASH PRESS, and the editor of RASPUTIN: A Poetry Thread (a literary journal of poetry).
https://twitter.com/joemilfordpoet
​http://jmilford2005.wix.com/josephvmilfordpoethttp://rasputinpoetry.blogspot.com/
http://www.backlashpress.com/

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