Robert S. King lives in the countryside near Cave Spring, Georgia. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including The Kenyon Review, Southern Poetry Review, Lullwater Review, Chariton Review, Main Street Rag, and others. His latest books are The Hunted River and The Gravedigger’s Roots, both from Shared Roads Press, 2009. He is currently Director of FutureCycle Press, www.futurecycle.org.

Three Poems (November 20, 2010. Issue 22.)

Ice-Sparkles

Tonight all lovers bow their drunken heads:
balls of crystal light orbit the bottom of a pond.
Lairs and nests purr submerged between stones.
Across a universe of tongues, the Loch Ness and fawn
together lap ancient water from the pool in our hands.

Between our eyes the stars hang on chandeliers.
Bold in this looking glass, the wet moon
swells to face a night of eyes.
Here we are born of falling ice,
and wed of rising flame, our smoke
making ghosts out of love.

The Hag in the Hermitage

I dream of a bed of black leaves,
of a cackling hag who lives in a stump.
In patience she is much the hen,
her old body the shape of a kettle
that no longer whistles invitations,
nor is never poured out onto the public’s lap.

The tip of her turned‑up nose is ash.
Her stump is a chimney without a house,
smoke screen, smoke signals rising
that would burn a stranger’s eyes.

Moths swarm around the top.
Her broom pops out like a tongue
and she eats everyone alive
who drops in for supper.

But when the clouds break like eggs
and give water to her hollow tree,
she is no duck.
Her hat floats upside down to the top.
It is full of young drowned birds.

Desire and Peace

Oh well I know how Desire is Peace’s karma,
how Desire is a road,
how Peace is a mansion in which I do not stay.

Because Peace always says yes,
I drag you like dust from paradise.
Because you are my shadow,
what have I made you do in the name of Peace?
Because your hands move with mine,
you too must wrench stones from the roads,
rain them against doors
that do not hear your knocks.
Like me, you have closed a final door behind you
but never seem at home.

Still, like ash on a dying wind,
I would settle awhile at your feet
swap you my left shoe for your right,
share diaries full of last words,
some of them still echoing down a rough road,
calling us home, home, home,
as I rise from our cozy tomb
and go on.