Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonPrairie Cemetery
Coyotes roam for rabbits. Deer graze beyond the grave protecting fence. A venomed snake, slithered between bars, warms upon the marker of the self-sufficient dead. The snake with a shake of its percussive tail, kindly warns of its lethal grin when a widow comes with...
Yard
Our yard has gone unmowed for four weeks and rain has been heavy. It is thick with rough grass dandelions tall buttercups low weeds green all shades uneven. I like it like this. It reminds me of a mountain meadow I knew once.
Gun Violence Rap
There are semi-automatics, made in factories, sold in stores, there are hollow pointed bullets that are only made for wars. There are businessmen in shirtsleeves, selling guns to make a buck, while in the darkening city an ex-convict’s out of luck. There’s a...
There Are Deaths We Die and Still Live
There are deaths we die and still live. They are the measured deaths. A man stands against the pantry door and marks with a pencil how much of himself he has lost since the mark of the previous year. There are deaths we die and still live. There are those who agree...
Dancing Toward the Winter Moon
We have lived through many moons, quarter, half-moon, full moon, dark, month after month, season after season, years come and years gone, spilling and filling, over and again the cup of borrowed light spiraling toward a final fullness, journey of completion, dancing...
Black Fly
Flagstone patio, border- flowers & grasses, roses & lilacs, birdbath & bougainvillea. Of ten thousand pleasant choices, my frail-winged nemesis chose my grass-stained earth-caked shoe jammed upon my sockless foot to walk its...
Lunar Landing
I look up at Apollo’s moon with droll psychology. How can a moon that’s walked upon be free of lunacy? [written on the occasion of the Apollo 11 moon landing, July 20, 1969]
Bird
The bird flew into the glass wall living. The bird died still wanting to live. 2015
Silence
I have heard no silence in years, not true silence, not the velvet black silk worn by night asleep in the mountains, not the soft silver song of singing stars. My bloodhound ears search for silence. I pick up the scent of an audio graffiti artist who commits acoustic...