Poetry by Tom Pescatore

            Fred Postles CC



​Gnostic Reading

You are reading this with totemic vision.
         
your eyes are like headlight winking stars
          in the void night over I-70 Kansas plains.

your finger on the mount
          are like god's timeless hand tirelessly being all time,
          being anything, being same, meant as everything or;

your smirk is of my creation
          out of nothing, becoming nothing, going back
          into nothing, after all being of nothing at the start

you are reading this as a last dying light, going out.




...and the floorboards were golden

so that you ran your tongue against them
carving and chipping bone and screw

so that you were forgetful
unable to piece together what had come before

so that you pulled your knees up to your chin
blind to dirt and dust and scruff and tar

so that you took to running knifed edges across grain
drawing up curled veins

so that each needled point penetrated the skin
and left glitters of light in their path

so that with each step the surface gave slightly sinking
marking your footprints your face prints your palms

so that at night it appeared as it did before
but for the metallic taste

so that even though your outside mildewed with collapse
the inside shone brightly in the sun




​Don’t wake the camp with your bindle

50 yards into sagebrush field 
over the cattle crossing bridge
duck under the barbed wire fence
turn right 7/8th of a mile down the trail
marked with hacked out squares dyed yellow over red
to wood laid fence triangle shaped
hot spring pool
tucked along hillside
tobacco root mountains overhead
morning as the cool dew dries     sunrise 

to take in the waters
still and silent in the Montana sprawl


​

Tom Pescatore can sometimes be seen wandering along the Walt Whitman bridge or down the sidewalks of Philadelphia's old Skid Row. He might have left a poem or two behind to mark his trail. He claims authorship of a novel the Boxcar Bop (RunAmok Books, 2018) and the poetry travel journal Go On, Breathe Freely! (Chatter House Press, 2016).

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