Three Poems by Mark Blaeuer

by Mark Blaeuer

Explorer

With a smooth flat rock

on her lap, she gripped a second rock—

jagged and dirty—

anathema by strict parental rule.

She engraved one name,

Gareth, to mark

a modest plot in the family backyard,

where lay an acquaintance in his chitin suit.

Not only for himself

had Gareth roved,

but on behalf of the wide universe

in her soul.

A Pack of Wild Gods

Our feral deities—

Robin Hood, Ned Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, Jesse James—

lecture at the Hall of Ignorance.

From encircling hills,

dark reply.

Pastoral

A driver in the vise of accident

struggles till one

temporal lobe leaks history. Goodyear

spins hot.

A leg here, there

a pavement runnel, Type A exiting, quiet

form at scarred wheel.

Cattle graze nearby.