David McLansky Poems

They had to bring them from the farms,
The rural soldiers far from the storm
Those naïve lads deprived of books
Who obeyed their orders while sergeants looked;
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I loved you ‘till your teeth fell out
You often forgot to brush
You bit me with your piggy-snout
You were often in a rush;
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“Oh stupid boy,
Come when I call,
Oh stupid boy, you so annoy,
You answer with a plaintive “why.”
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When Fortune fails a caring heart
And what was sworn in masking night
Are vows revealed as love’s black Art
As heaven spreads its mocking light;
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Your skin is white as alabaster
I stroke your skin without disaster
I touch you beneath your loose nightdress,
There’s no resistance to my caress;
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Alas, I felt like Robinson Crusoe;
Or Linda Wolfe without a Trousseau;
Like Vincent Van Gogh without a brush,
A manic turtle in a rush;
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Can the Furies blood
Fed by hate
Metastasize and then abate
Purge itself
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I've walked this road a thousand times
Know every bend and hill
Here the deer cross and here they bed
And here the stream bank over-spills.
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What will move
This child at play
Figured in a
Woman's form
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Remember me in your pain
When you call out for help in vain;
When illness rots your cells inside,
When blood does bruise your proud thick hide;
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