Four Poems by Lawrence Eby

Lawrence Eby

Larry Eby

Larry Eby is the author of two books of poetry, Flight of August (Trio House Press), which won the 2013 Louise Bogan Award, and Machinist in the Snow (ELJ Publications). His photos have appeared in Blue Mesa Review, The Sand Canyon Review, The Great American Lit Mag, and others. Poems and photos can be found by following him on Instagram: @larryeby or Twitter: @vaneebs.

I drive by, shout
 
           across the vacant lot, the hound flees
a calico carcass, the window rattles
                      within the door—do you see
 
what I've done? I stash the moon in the city's pockets,
          the stars beneath its streets. I swap the firmament
                    with a flashlight-lit bed sheet,
                              penny-colored stains
                              in the shape of rain. (We)
 
city-dwellers speak an analog language,
                         into freightwind,
 We all become diablo at once,
             chanting 'round a trash fire:
                          patatat patatat
 We beat the ground with our palms.
 
 
 
 
I Don't Suppose You Could Help
 
Speak of cinema, speak of salt, the rodeo forfeits meaning:
          the audience—the ones in the rabble of a collapsed bleacher
 
have lost all but a voicebox. Do you hear it? The static onomatopoeia!
          Don't ask me how to feel. I'm too busy contemplating the comma,
 
Against a green-screen, I've given up playing the part of janitor.
          Memory grows wings to spite me, and out in the front yard,
                    the neighbor's dog is pissing on my mailbox
 again.
 
Listen, the fact of the matter is—
 
 

 
 
Host Party; Burn Flag
 
Face melting, woman at the market,
             picking at her teeth with a 10 dollar bill,
I bought a rake to wrestle with earth again—
                                       lettuce browns in the crisper,
                                                     laminate wood floor
                                                     cracks:breaks:disintegrates
                              me
                                                     and earth orbit each other
 sometimes. Depending on the other dinner guests,
                                          gluttons:pests:————-
                             I've never felt so alone,
 a truck has a flat tire in the alleyway.
 



 
 
New Front
 
Mother tugs my wrist
            the spotlights swirl round,
            I follow, staggering over rocks
            the way I was taught
                      to run
to evade, and now,
                                                we push back the brush
            look across the river, a flash light sentry patrolling the banks,
            and then: he's gone.

 
We ford the waters,
           it's neck high and I can taste it,
                      I want sunlight!
            but ringing out across the rapids:
the howls of dogs, birdshot,
            (I pray in the air)
the splashing,
             I can't tell it's my own.

 
               Then, she, the goddess
guiding me through the waters,
dives and I follow,
                         and we swim
deep trenches

 
until we both stop moving, our gaze
upwards at the flashlight moon orbiting
the earth in its liquid light
            blending back and
forth like a serpent.