Poetry by Hunter Gagnon

                        ​Michael Cory CC



Quarantine poem #163 the one from underground

With a long knife in the thin reeds in the back trails
dressed
in ticks and worried inchworms
I heard them talking

About her and jobs and
no jobs. Crunched 
around a bush 
full of wasps

to hear. Saw me
my long knife. Called 
the cops. 40 
minutes later their noise

at the driveway
chicken 
coop. Where previous generations were forgotten 
until 1 pm

and baked alive. I hear them
searching down
the river 
crashing through for me

my inchworms and long
knife. The heart loves to run
heated to death
in

its plywood house. In the boulderlands
I think about chickens
and the place. Logged 50
years ago

sent dogs
a helicopter
the CIA
sent my own thoughts

against me. This heart. Trembling in a hole of the mind
with feathers on its red tongue
their efforts will find
no person here

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Of the gold-collared dogs

Saw a pink heart today that blows apart. We did nothing. They kicked our sign down and I said hide. 

They took back the city. From nothing. For themselves. Always was. Some obvious cops among them.

Then soft lances in the woods. Gold needles that fell. Little sounds. A folding chair. Some light beer. 

To live on the hill and not possibly care. Who can. 28 minutes of youtube and bird dogs. Pointing well. 

Saw a painted lung today that fills with voices. Spoke for the red cables and quiet and fog. Spoke tediously.

To not possibly care. They came for my love 7 years ago. I didn’t know. They got it and the east windows. 

Facing the blasts. Where they demonstrate power. Where bodies. Where blast funeral of all parts dusted. 

You were there. Dust in the yellow breath. At a bright grey window. Stepping for your sandals. A shadow.

Stumbling. I did nothing. You had the right. Will always. Will remember. No heart anymore. The backlash.

The tower. The return to decency. The return listened to. In shut rooms. Cringing. Your wrong death.

Looks like this. Saw a head today that opens like a latch. The country comes out. We will not win.

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Quarantine poem #169 the war 3 parts

--Part I--
War in this, the dark porch
       screened, in Somersworth, they’re yelling
            yelling tossed out like dirt clods the 
 digging mole
                       1. You don’t let me get mad
            2. do NOT walk away from me
                 3. I need to get to blow off steam. Don’t
                         ever take that out of my hands
      and a pretty brown bird is singing over an unplayed net
 staked into the hill of lawn
             the dark summer green rolling up to more
      white + grey painted properties, 200,000 range, fixer-uppers called
Scummersworth
        by those others with clean wrinkles and tans who enjoy nature
the rocks, the polygonal sailboats of rising 
                   ocean places

--Part II--
       it’s all set, the grill is set after thunder
            the garbage trucks don’t yield here, my brakes
  are shot from this
                        the road is foaming from this
       War in this
In 1. “I really hate business owners” “you have my ear” 
                               2. “I just
            hate business owners ok I need to work” “ok we’ll talk about
how you hate
                   business owners later” 
     3. “it’s about how they’re tricked” “ok” and beetle bright
motionless cars 
                                and boxes of the good 
                                old life
                    shredded and shit on by rats. 

--Part III--
                 in everything is spoiled by the yelling
      the delicate statuettes
            Owls. Sheep. Two dogs with their claws
on their shoulders
                    “So he just wants to make an exclusive
     club? A good old boy thing??” “I’m just tired of being 
devalued
          all the time” In this
In the difference between beef from home
      and beef from Indiana
         In how tear gas causes 
                                          abortions
1. You don’t get to fight with me
          2. I’m the one who goes out every dawn
     3. I’m the one with rain and wet spiderwebs
                      on my face

--Conclusion--
    Seen 
 at dawn:  faces with curved mouths floating
            in a pale tree
                           War in this: in what
     they ask us for
             in stern voices, after night of combat, in
                flashing dreams, in this 
                                    and to what 
we, 
                            kneeling
     underneath, agree

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Hunter Gagnon lives in North Berwick, Maine. He has worked as a State Park Seasonal Aide, a bookseller, and as a poetry teacher for elementary schools (before the pandemic). He holds a degree in Philosophy and has served in AmeriCorps and FemaCorps. He is a winner of the Mendocino Coast Writers' Conference 2019 Poetry Contest. His work has appeared in 7x7, Joyland, A) Glimpse) Of), Stay Journal, Cabildo Quarterly and elsewhere.
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