
Listed by Duotrope
a peer-reviewed quarterly journal on literature
E-ISSN 2457-0265
Poetry
Christopher Hivner
Volume:
3
2019-04-01
Issue:
2
Carry the Day
I called to you
in a dream
while you walked through walls.
The sun lay
in the palm of your hand,
ravens circling your head
on watch for
what’s to come.
I called to you
in a voice drowned by
the heart beating
in the corner of the room,
my words empty
on the air.
I wake minutes later
staring at the ceiling,
my own heart
thumping in my throat
while crows
pecked at my eyes.
I called to you
as you stood in the doorway
arms pinned by solar flares,
you called back to me
with the voice of the night,
naming me
as the one who tried.
Every Daybreak
There are remnants everywhere
I look, in every
daybreak and twilight’s onset,
the lyrics of songs
and poetry’s rhymes,
the faces of strangers and the
questions they ask.
The spin of the Earth
shifts me off-kilter
until I stumble down
a hillside
of jagged jewels
waiting for extraction
or extinction.
At the bottom
I am even,
legs under me,
leaving the detritus behind
for a path to spring
and beyond,
to leisure and
apres-noir phantasm.
Walking through a field
of left-behind wishes
the speed of life
blurs my vision
so I move in clouds,
picking and choosing
my path
by the acid in my gut
and the tunes in my head.
There are remnants everywhere,
they don’t beckon
or push,
they’re merely reminders
of where I’ve been,
cautionary trailheads
bending my light
in another direction
so I try a new path.
The Real Thing
There were pieces of us
in the wind
after the accident,
traces of humor,
lashes of fear,
testaments of labor,
all that made us strong,
all that shaped our legion,
heavy is the crown
for attention
from the woman
of the artful seat
and the man from
the other side.
We gathered back
forward front,
an effort to
hold our past accountable,
I believed,
you tried, failed,
there was no way out
that didn’t end
with smoke
from flames
created in your eyes.
They found enough
to make a shade
of two people
that could have been us,
pale eyes staring,
lucent hands
wrapped in one another
for a show of love
while the wind
takes away the real thing.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
I’m ok
I tell myself
each morning,
the reflection in the mirror
a mask of doubt,
skepticism riding high
in my arched brow.
I’m ok
I reassure myself
with a virtual
slap on the back
and an atta-boy smile.
I’m . . . not bad
I mumble,
confidence slipping
like the hairs from my
nearly bald head.
It could be worse,
I think,
as I brush my teeth,
a collection of
bone and enamel
infiltrated by fillings
and the remnants
of a lost crown
all surrounding a lonely,
empty spot
where my favorite tooth
used to be.
It is what it is,
the catch-all
of philosophical musings,
easier to understand
than Nietzsche,
happier than Kierkegaard
even in its measured apathy.
I shrug my shoulders
and turn away
from my reflection.
I’m ok,
for now
About the Poet
Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He has recently been published in Anti-Narrative Journal, Record Magazine, and Weird Reader. He has had 5 chapbooks of poetry published, the newest is “When Science Collapses” published by Writing Knights Press. website: www.chrishivner.com, Facebook: Christopher Hivner - Author, Twitter: @Your_screams.