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David
Crump
Outside
the County where I Counted My Dead
One could hear how loud
a blue gill, distilling time, slaps water,
a hook in gill, seems slim to life.
Almost awe. Almost secondary wariness.
Almost. Almost a gardener slew weeds
without slaying himself.
Sky double-trickled. Let the sun
do its own thing then. Outside
the county where I counted my dead,
a troubling memo: leaves fall
and mechanical street sweepers
hurry them into bellies barely imaginable;
we cling to our tomb-lids and weep
and crap. Mothers bump time from wine
dreams, mutter "Gregory Peck is a fag?"
The boundless world grew up
sure and fitting and claw.
Glow.
Invitation
The tree where we shot the rabid sow
and skinned and split her:
you can go there now.
Nothing is screaming after the first
shot now. Nothing is bleeding almost
human all over the trunk in a fit.
Nobody quickly fumbles
for another small cartridge,
hiding in the deep gut of a backpack.
No startled birds lift from odd folds
in the afternoon shade. No deer fly
from their midday beds.
The sky no longer rains
boar’s blood, even the wind
has removed us.
The Broken
1.
To the birds, furious in the living,
comes sudden wind. Watch them
at that flight of theirs, above the road
where holy wind kicks. They strain in air
but do not move. Ready wings rage and tuck
until the invisible current falters.
The dark ones settle at the road’s edge,
grateful again for what is given, what is found.
A hearing trick is worth its knowing,
come the simple throwing of rock
and rock and rock at the damned farmhouse.
When you find a window, a hearing
trick will let you know: No need
to keep throwing there.
2. Dear Deer,
Settle at road’s edge, running dead one.
Terrified and aware, why run blind into the cornfield
favoring your broken leg and softly split guts?
There is no need to flee, no need to eat
one thing.
The dark party offers its wings
to study your minutes left.
Dead is a window even a fool knows
fine enough to climb through.
From the cornfield, study the farmhouse,
the green season.
I know windows exist, Lord,
though I cannot find one
well enough to break it open
with this fool rock, this hard bird.
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David Krump received his M.S. in
Creative Writing (with distinction) from University of Oxford. His
most recent work appears in Bombay Gin, Fugue, Memorious, Poetry,
Poetry Review, and The Greensboro Review. He received the Ruth
Lilly Fellowship from The Poetry Foundation, and the Florence Khan
Memorial Award. He lives in La Crosse, WI, where he teaches comp
and (next semester) lit. Along with Bill Stobb, who has more than
once been described as his crime-fighting partner, Krump curates the
Pump House Reading Series, which is a good series, if you're ever in
the area. |
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