CIRCLES INTERRUPTED
After lines from Bill Monroe and Bob Dylan
The Devil appeared, one afternoon,
In my cabin home among the hills.
He flew me atop a mountain high.
Having never seen more than the hills,
Happily I followed quickly there,
Leaving my crying wife and babies.
“I’ll be back soon,” I whispered to them.
“Every single thing you see is yours,”
Satan said unto me then, “Only
We have a few battles to fight now.
Mother Earth suffers at human hands.
Only you can free her from their grip,
If you will but help me spill the blood
Of every man who charges these plains.
“The dirt will grow red with their bad blood,
And new flies will cloud their visages,
And one million men more may well come,
But natural armies will prevail.
If you shall, I offer you, lead them.”
Thus the Devil tempted, seductive,
As I gazed in wonder at the Earth.
He appealed to the rage I have felt
Long at the oppression of humans,
Those who oppress my people and lands,
Locking us in their train’s red caboose,
So cutting them down sounded perfect…
Yet with Satan here, God was somewhere,
And my babies’ cries filled up my ears.
A COMING STORM
The gods are moving furniture around,
Above the thumping, shuddering clouds,
As we look on from below in fear
And joy.
DEPENDENCE AMBIVALENCE
After lines from Joni Mitchell, Sean Harris, and Brian Tatler
Oh, damn you, rogue, you red, red rogue,
I get so lonely when you’re walking.
In France, I met a gorgeous vampire.
She taught my awkward feet to dance.
I learned my lessons so damned well;
She was a teacher good as hell,
But she left me alone inside a fire.
Her departure left me dead at heart,
… and so I retired. With swaying hips
She threw my body back into my shell.
So I will never venture forth again,
Will never dance and swing or sin again.
Am I evil?
Yes, I am.
Am I evil?
Am I a man?
Yes, I am.
A PRELUDE
Deep in the night
When falls a dark shroud,
Sins often happen
No man knows about.
Yet, somehow, God
Will always find out
What few men really
Ever want screamed aloud.
PTSD
While dying on this field of glory,
I find no wounds have found my flesh.
Here, you and I alone are victors—
Our battle here crushed all who thresh.
Our souls are thrust through with the bludgeon
Of anguish, cries, and blood, and gore.
The two of us emerge from blood pools
Which drowned what good we knew before.
Our war, damned, here we could not squander;
The ones we fought for clutched us tight,
And yet our tears mingle in mud;
We hold each other close tonight.
The people here can never know
What nightmares trouble nights, our day:
The screams, the smells of bright life leaving
That ever appear in our way.
Now, you and I, well, know each other.
We understand our troubled souls.
I ask you, stay and help me deter
The death that seeks to keep me low.
Ethan McGuire is a writer and a healthcare cybersecurity professional whose essays, fiction, poetry, reviews, and translations have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Better than Starbucks, Emerald Coast Review, Literary Matters, The New Verse News, and many other publications. He is also the author of an art and poetry chapbook, Songs for Christmas. Ethan grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, lived in the Florida Panhandle on the Gulf of Mexico for twelve years, and currently resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his wife and their two children. To find Ethan McGuire and his writing, you may visit his website, TheFlummoxed.com, where you can contact him, see publication updates, find new work, and more.
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