Sampson Starkweather

Survivor’s Glee

from the slit throat
of my shadow
hot light spills
here
hold out your hands
what if
I told you
this medium
can keep us
alive
nobody has to die
inside a poem
outside
pummeled by
waves of why
the self
wandering out
into traffic
like a body
of water
somehow
you survive
yourself
every time
even time
abides
in the mind
a snow leopard
our sex
sleek kneeling
in the tall grass
anywhere there is terror
or hunger
in the dumbstruck world
our love
a dragonfly
on a long dog chain
pulling the stakes
from the goddamn ground

Nature (Boy Ric Flair) Poem

do you get the feeling
the leaves are plotting
their revenge
it is always fall
I lie
on the forest floor
let the light
fill my chest
with its trillion arrows
float among the pines
under a dug-up sky
shrouded in
acoustic shadows
trapped in being
I know
nothing
but the clouds
are like me
beautiful
and stupid
and white
without meaning
at home
in all that blue
quickening
toward dissipation
I watch the clouds be clouds
and I feel free