Submissions

Monday 17 May 2010

Issue six// Jim Davis

Artist in the Kitchen

Simmering rag weed, molten, mottled stone kettle
On newsprint, India ink mirrors subtle shading in
Delicate, deliberate strokes diluted in degrees.

Window sill harbor, red clay, chipping vase of firm
White rose cut fresh on the morn, bundled, skipped by maidens
Tramping from Tralee.

Newsprint, stone kettled, tacked to wall, to dry.

Blouses, pleated trousers, pinned stiff on clothesline, to dry.

By supper has blown, come south from Donnegal, gray
nimbus, and striking with blue eyes, peculiar accent decrees

--------------When the badger bites, break a stick, he’ll think it bone.

Songs from the Bayou play melancholy in the den, plucking bough,
bending ballad, green and crimson chorus echoing off stone walls;
in the early morning, a pint, a dirge, neighbors pound on the same -----stone walls
hung with cheap floral images, painted in the preferred coat of
a landlord, who dresses in farmer’s garb, who’s not trod farmland -----in ages.

The weather inspires thieves, plucking blouses like berries off the -----vine.

The mud of the yard sprouts clover, a lily on the row, in the -----crosshairs of the mower.

© Jim Davis 2010
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Jim Davis is a painter by trade, but poetry has developed into one of his greatest passions. His first collection, Groundhog Days, goes to print in June with Mi-te Press. He has a BA in Studio Art from Knox College and is currently studying poetry through Yale University. In addition to the arts, he is also an international professional football player.