Poetry by Samara Golabuk

Dan Finnen



Anatomy of Under
 
Upward shining light folds
ever newer suns around
a bilious, fibrous length,
reaching down for what is needed,
                 spiral down in uncomely haste
offering up what is not
                 expire/transpiration--
                 beautiful poison,
                 an altar-leaving for the face of day
 
I've been made backwards from flowers
those antitheses of reason.
I tumble on the surface,
unbound and dangerous,
loosing my appetite on the sky
unlike the sensible gentians,
who stretch the translucent
white fingers of thirst
into gravity and blindness,
to rock and earth, ripe with worms
                  little worms, little worms,
                  grimy angels
                  feathering
                  through soil
                  broken pieces
                  of circle curl-
                  ing against
                  the downward
                  shining dark.




Thoughts while digging in a patch of barren earth
 
Will the microbes forgive us?
The earthworms and their bounty have gone,
 
and all things green, virile and small
have passed this patch by:
 
neither root here crabgrass, nutsedge or spurge,
neither land here the wandering spores
 
that erupt in wet pleasure when it rains.
Wild and liberated, they are--
 
to this circle of dead earth--
now named fungus derelictionis.
 
There was a grown pine here once,
then a stump some years later,
 
and still after that a shimmering termite nest
that got the kerosene and fire--
 
there was smoke for days,
then a terrible fairy circle on the lawn.
 
It made the house safe from the wood-eaters,
that minor conflagration, but we
 
expunged the soil-loving things, too.
Now, I am digging space for something--
 
after the tree, pine bugs, mites and divorce--
something, an invasive, even, and wondering:
 
will the microbes forgive me?
And the earthworms?




The gift of no guarantees
 
When forever went out of my vocabulary,
golden moons hung whispers of tomorrow
on my ears to let me know
time was still okay.
 
When grief burnt the impurities
from the pockmarks of my ex-marriage,
I wore the blessed relief of uncertainty
in a carrying sling and held it close for a while,
murmuring, swaying.
 
I slept when dragons roared.
I woke to a silence that pinged my ears
in polyphonic glory—too much metal
in my chi, too much Libra in my chart,
happy is a coin I have no change for,
but wish for a gift of it in a China cup,
a sip, a gorgeous sip of it.




​Sparking

The jutting moon perturbs
our angular momentum.
The annular sound from four speakers
shapes itself around us as we move,
a slowing hum and purr
belying static's carborundum swaths.

Windows close their eyes. A dog howls.
You howl, and the frictive bolus
of my pubic hair skrits against your palm,
a wolf near dawn.
 
Thin light melts its way down treeline’s
lush foliage, a visual sigh. Pink-yellow
morning, coffee soon, no time at all,
our hands together,
a smile, a yawn.

​

Bio: Samara is a two-time Pushcart nominee whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Inklette, Eyedrum Periodically, Peacock Journal, Eunoia Review and others. She has two children, works in marketing and design, and has returned to university to complete her BA in Poetry. More at www.samarawords.com.

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