A DUAL PERSPECTIVE
By Patrick Erickson
A DUAL PERSPECTIVE
Does the edge of glory
really work?
Are you skittish?
Are you skirting
the edge
walking the walk
toeing the line?
Does it glow
like the glowworm
like its double
its wormhole
its twin
like those lighting strips
that direct you
down the aisle
to your seat
in a dark theater
full of dark matter
full of suspense
and no repose?
Are you sitting down
for this
or teetering on the brink
and over the edge
and down the wormhole
coming out
God knows where
the edge of glory
or the razor's edge?
If I could support
light waves
if I could refract light
like that
if I could be
on their wavelength
on the button
on the beam
I could put them on
I could wear them
as a gown
multi-faceted
if I could arc
like that
if I could refract light
like a prism
I could go the distance
I could be the go-between
We could all be
as one
and go for broke.
Black-eyed Susan
A sometimes upright annual
with alternating basal leaves
and stout branching stems
covered by course hair
hence brown Betty
It has daisy-like flowers
with yellow ray-florets
compassing brown or black
dome-shaped disc-florets
thus yellow ox-eye daisy
The genus name Rudbeckia
honors Olaus Rudbeck
a botany professor
at the University of Uppsala
and one of Linnaeus's teachers
Look for the flowerheads
in late summer and early autumn
Look for them in Maryland
where they are designated the state flower
Look for a blanket of them
in the winner’s circle
around the winner's neck
at the Preakness Stakes
The roots of the black-eyed Susan
are an astringent
a wash for sores
a poultice for snake bites
an infusion for colds
and worms in children
a diuretic
and eardrops for earaches
Butterflies are drawn to them
in large color-masses.
LIKE JOHN CAGE
I could say
“Take my heart”
But what of my heart strings?
Snap!
What of my rib cage?
I could say
“You can strum my ribs
if you can play me
like a fiddle”
like John Cage
no strings attached
Like John Cage
I could whisper
sweet nothings
But then the silence
would be deafening.
TWO STICKS IN THE MUD
Can two sticks in the mud
should you have two sticks
to rub together
compete with green reeds
much less commune
when the cattails
along the river bank
ever fluent
speak in tongues?
Can a tongue-tied couple
so entwined
enmesh
when one is root bound
and the other rootless
when mud meets mud
root upon root
the Sea of Reeds
one day
the River Styx the next?
About the Author:
Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Main Street Rag, Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and Danse Macabre.
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