Three Poems by E Eugene Jones Baldwin

 

barbara jean’s apron

flits and flutters and dragonflies whir in the cornfield wind riffling riffing ripening soybean rows the highfliers hawks and vultures o the woods choked by purple shooting stars wild onions hyacinth white flowered trillium snakes long and short and rattling and hissing migrate across the road they’re headed out of the creek bottoms to hibernate and dead snakes tongues askew stain the rutted road with rainbow hues and fuzzy black and yellow caterpillars ripple across the road in waves lamb’s quarters and chokecherry the weeping willow trees in full yellow splendour sashay like dancers the clucking chickens pecking their away across the yard wary eyes on the barn cats the checkerspot butterflies resting in sun patches on the lawn warming wings and wing-faded monarchs rally for a final flyby the wild grape clusters heavy with sweetness hang from the arbour and there there and there a fine mist of flame butter yellow dark purple scarlet o every breath of wind floats Queen Anne’s Lace perfume the oak trees dropping lush rain of acorns o and there you stand naked but for an apron you are my queen and you wave and run and hide and seek your splendid bouncy ass and I chase you our game of toss the apron

dears

 

I wake up to a great racket the fuzzcat perched on the kitchen table shoving her head under blinds and yowling and I look out the back door and spy six does ladies of the sunrise standing around the car mama and five daughters and they rub against the trees and nose one another do these small town deer and it is a miraculous sight it is the temporary condition of Life but I don’t believe in God but I believe in godness this morning the tumult of crow and his lover perched on the wire and fat groundhog on the porch and red-shouldered hawk in the sassafras tree and pileated and redheaded woodpeckers and screech owl in godness the tornadoing buzzards gliding above my writer’s window and perfect tiny buds pushing through the mud and the damn spider that bit me in my bed the tawny bobcat in the scrubbrush baby finch in its mouth the starling murmuration the stars o life o godness.

Baetylus

frosted night slivering  

moonrise a blaze

of meteor streaking

fire the sky the

stars east to

west like horizontal

lightning lighting Orion’s

sword lamping the

corn stubble on

the fallow field

deer eyes shining

coyote death shriek

night hawks calling

i am prey

(i. m. pei made)

night shifts nigh

E Eugene Jones Baldwin is an essayist, freelance journalist, playwright, and musician. His recent publications include "The Genehouse Chronicles" (book), Passager Literary Magazine (memoir), "A Black Soldier's Letters Home: World War II" (book), and "Catbelly Heat on My Knees" (fiction).