FEATURED WRITER
Turner Roth
Southampton
Red sashes, red hats upon them,
marching back and forth in the barn.
Dull saber leads on, my power thick in ripeness
of Virginia moon, cotton bending to the
final exit fought for, come what may.
Didn’t see nor hear the fury at their door,
wild wind that breaks their cultivation,
how even now they scream in the night
in fits of terror that we were—
What will be on the other side of it:
Luke chastised and
the spiny-backed fiends
driven from the temple we create on earth.
From hieroglyphic of corn leaf and blue-green sun
there is shown the way
beyond the curse,
beyond the terror of the name.
Ham’s Curse
Sour drop spilled out and rolled down his leg:
I am demon seed, scorched scrotum’s son, placed
as instrument at tent’s entrance, dark cool that drew me in.
It opened to me, enclave of forgotten womb, maintained now
as outpost for afternoon’s retreat,
splayed out as lamb entrails to mark how man’s curved back
is creation of the world,
hoe and axe beside him, sprouted out of ground
like the vine he cultivates:
having drunk too much of it,
sinking into miasmic sleep, direct descendent of the first living
touches the right hand of sorrowful Adam as
the crashing waves recommence.
Fits and starts, groaning and grinding,
powerful thigh swells and maw chomping at the bit.
He doesn’t notice me flitting as shadow about the wall,
sickled bits of twisted mulch spat out
from the shaft of creation, aberrant and bearing
the cost of what he has borne, we sink together
in the storm as I, a barnacled sore, reenter the chamber
of this sweet and sudden labor:
coming to the furthest reaches,
racked motor of genesis.
