John Lindley
Graveside: Guthrie, Oklahoma
Damn me if he don't find a way out of there,
you just see if he don't.
That sonofabitch wouldn't stay put
with half an arsenal of lead in him
so half a ton of concrete on his fine pine box
won't hold him. No. He's seen too much of life
since dying: rode the rails, cruised the highways,
skated alongside himself in store front windows.
He's tasted the sweet free moving air
through an open door; held the mucus of machine oil
in his hollow nostrils when the ghost train reeks by;
kept stiff as a stiff in auto's that bounced
each new surrogate parent like popcorn in a pan;
seen a two-headed stag and a human crab.
I swear, if nobody comes for Elmer
he'll be coming for them, you betcha,
bad arm under the other,
coin clutched under his fig of a tongue
to buy booze.
you just see if he don't.
That sonofabitch wouldn't stay put
with half an arsenal of lead in him
so half a ton of concrete on his fine pine box
won't hold him. No. He's seen too much of life
since dying: rode the rails, cruised the highways,
skated alongside himself in store front windows.
He's tasted the sweet free moving air
through an open door; held the mucus of machine oil
in his hollow nostrils when the ghost train reeks by;
kept stiff as a stiff in auto's that bounced
each new surrogate parent like popcorn in a pan;
seen a two-headed stag and a human crab.
I swear, if nobody comes for Elmer
he'll be coming for them, you betcha,
bad arm under the other,
coin clutched under his fig of a tongue
to buy booze.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The