Poetry by Alan Britt

PANCAKES
 
Plaster eyes, indentations
traced like mascara moons
sent to deify the Pharaoh.
 
Cherubs, pollywog angels, deliver slices
of wheat berry, sans gluten.
 
Arizona jaguar rippling a Liszt piano
licks its saffron nose & yawns a rainbow
of silk geishas crossing the border.
 
Monk’s bloodstained robe,
as monks’ robes
often hint of iron,
lodges teeth into vertebrae
out of habit, dressed in habit,
& slashes a gaseous mountain
large enough,
large enough to shield bald eagles,
heretic cougars, & rusty grizzlies,
plus sawdust sunlight showering
an upper 16th century row house’s
late afternoon milkmaid hiding the affair
beneath layers of consternation & silk.
 
                                   ↑
                              ←  →
                                   ↓
 
Puerto, Puerto, Rico, Rico.
 
Puerto the firefly blasting his way
through the universe knows the secret,
secret of liquorice religion,
secret to secret’s secrets
that plunged roots long ago through the garlic tidal,
wild onion, & toxic copper from Neruda’s grave.
 
Silk adjectives stained by wine kisses
weave a lace of white lightning
on bended knee, begging for mercy,
& solemn to religion the way
lightning shivers the August air
we breathe & piss in—right after that
your family reunion could be my
family reunion, & you know what
that means.

​

Bio: Alan Britt has published over 3,000 poems nationally and internationally in such places as Agni, Bitter Oleander, Bloomsbury Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Christian Science Monitor, Confrontation, English Journal, Epoch, Flint Hills Review, International Gallerie (India), Kansas Quarterly, Letras (Chile), Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Midwest Quarterly,Minnesota Review, Missouri Review, New Letters, Northwest Review, Osiris, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Poet’s Market, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Revista/Review Interamericana(Puerto Rico), Revista Solar (Mexico), Roanoke Review, Steaua (Romania), Sunstone, Tulane Review, Wasafiri (UK), and The Writer’s Journal. His interview at The Library of Congressfor The Poet and the Poem aired on Pacifica Radio, January 2013. He has published 16 books of poetry. He teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

---