Three Poems by Steve Sibra

 

BISCUITS

I never knew where to find you

I never knew if you cared

I looked in the basement

I looked under the stairs

 

what I found was nothing

but biscuits, burned hard

as river rocks in the sun

good luck if you try to eat one

 

your touch is a ride in a stolen car

your kiss as shocking as an empty  grave

your heart stings like frozen biscuits

blood runs cold through a deep, dark cave

 

you go down like a vodka martini

on lips crisp and cold and dry

never sure whether to risk it

each nibble of you like a biscuit

just a taste     is all I dare try

 

in the end I will regret

the things I did and those I did not

in morning’s light you crumble

in my fingers like a biscuit piping hot

 

 

GUNPOWDER FLASH 

 

My uncle kept an iron

box in the attic

Inside, the fractured skull

of an Indian brave

old warriors buried rocks

atop the body

it kept out the wild animals

 

but not the civilized ones

In a gunpowder flash of progress

dust on the silver window pane

we see more clearly looking through backwards glass

wind peppers your teeth with lies

log walls painted with fire

beautiful golden winter

burning cold in the hearts of men.

 

 

A BALLROOM OF TEMPESTS

 

derelicts with claw hammer hands

losing sleep over slain angels

 

only two reasons to touch a fallen son

praise him, bring the light to light

 

or lay on hands of lies and deceit

build fires of fury to deny the night

 

Steve Sibra - writes poetry and short fiction from his home in Seattle, Washington.   His work has recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Whisky Blot, Third Wednesday, and Bear Paw Arts Journal.  He is currently at work on his second book of poetry, as well as a hybrid compilation of short stories and poems about his life growing up in a tiny town in Montana.