Sundin Richards: 3 Poems

Rural Evening

Some things are lifted.

That
break
was the first
word.

Emptied fields.
A pistol and a tree.
Enactments.

This secret
is easy:
thrown ignition
is no finality
but the trashy start
of what dreams come
from crowds.

Out of the brush it shot its small story
and brightly wingless didn't fall. Quick
accident I see now we are dressed in this
new flesh. Windows are figures loved for
what's behind them: a hand relaxed or a bit
of speech. Little motion or force.
The sun will take care of this later.

 

 

 

 

  All Sing

on the rocks
  weather reports
  stuff hypos
into working
  order.

Trailed far
  locomotive
  arcane
  shepherd
made new
in the
  trooping
dark.

Pigeons
  thus sabotage
floats
lands
  on the common

warning
hidden in
  willows
monked in
  long grass..

 

 

 

Distance

"For like a gun is touch."
-D. Schwartz

Liquid
and even this
was blood
again
when sudden
mastery
wrings from
memory
to get the hell out of here
and turns my head
at some sound.
No difference
when close
biology is
hearing.
The same blood
mine only
marks and is good
with the sun
redundant and warm
thankful
for these ravening
bits that
watch
and never
tire.

A child leaving, as whatever animal weds to
easy flesh; the stripping night makes songs.
Even lights are wanted. Cold at the wrong time.
Fasten and say it this way: however you always
shed. The red I couldn't buy still on display.
Your sickening love of glamor
and mine of damage
today a real tornado touched.
I wash last night out of me with this one.
What attacks is made simple by direction. Simple windows.
A chain. Another motion.

Poems by SUNDIN RICHARDS have appeared or are forthcoming in COLORADO REVIEW, INTERIM, VOLT, and WESTERN HUMANITIES REVIEW, where he took the 1999 Utah Writers' Prize for poetry. He lives in Salt Lake City.