By: Sam Barbee

Glimpse Eros

I crave new ecstasies,
pursue passion beyond the smooch.
Let obsession bypass innuendo –
bones quivering beneath skin.
Sweat rather than sonnets.

Dismiss passive liaisons leaving
wrinkles, in a palace trimmed with pillows.
A realm to be content with candles and stars.
Ho hum …
I say rip the calendar page,

and cast out both proper and pious excuses.
Scoff at tonight’s escape behind prescribed sleep.
Find flames bright enough to burn constraint.
Where eros pushes past the threshold.
Slow dance with the naked self.

A sanctuary to declare cravings over and over.
When timid wind tries to seep around my front door,
fling open the drapes. Ask the question:
why waste another night?
Allow lust to bite back, and catharsis release sparkle.

The Beneficent

Each pause restarts time.
My astray thought a fiasco
ignoring permanence of quiet.
While I long for seamlessness,
the world spins apart.

In my bed, I submerge myself
in a night-river’s burble wherein
wrecked worlds float toward darkness.
In a dream, the tree of beneficence leans,
divided by lightning – its scar first thing I see.

Shall I prune my orchard,
rife and ripe, until a bruise
sours the far side of savor?
Shall I tend a field, fertile or fetid,
consume its yield? Each morning,

I must rewrite my daily prayer.
A plea for respite for it to reveal
a distinct path beyond splintering.
Persuade me to reinvigorate fatigued faith,
and help reimagine dawn’s durable bough.

Secret Shiver

Laughter and sacraments no more than blunt tools,
I yearn to be magnetic. An energy to draw others near.
Exceed cosmetic attraction, or shiny marquee.
Scribbled messages cannot improve the hour.
Can I cause fond shiver when my hands find her?
The Her sung about over and over again.

I buy a round for the house when pals break out ballads.
Hand jive and dusty instruments to sing their hearts.
Nature moves in treble, but good ambiance dances
by bass clef’s solid bottom. Moon-lit sonata backbeats
lonesome rites of allure. My lover’s steady tune
charted, but silent before temptation’s first refrain.

Ah, hell with it. I want to surpass my tested soul.
Become the test – ignominious to the multitude.
Prove my metal. Be the metal – ore, never either.
Be a starting note, please. Spark her next breath
with spice, not lament. Surpass sluggish quest,
and ignore pain’s stagnant heart.

I will munch succulent cactus, accept thorns
to win her – let those I swallow leave a bruise,
or overcome indelicate nicks on the tongue.
So be it … Tight-stomach, excited lung, I shall be
a true thing sharing frosty wonders – a new moon,
and a love who loves me.

If loss had. A

voice. Revenge. Eloquent
like a cut. Gem. ‘s luster.
Trim on silver-edged. Cloud
‘s. Illumination in same light as.
Whitest moon-dance glissade.
A firefly. Flicker. Fraught
and. Forged subverts cognitive.
Disassemble thread of ants into.
A question-. Mark like when.
Answered inside. Gnarly
knothole. Disorder. Dried as.
Coffee’s. Sugarless table facts
and. Facets. Sweat a marvel.
Noise swarms. Up alongside.
Ways. Losses deceive a. Sensual.
Override with. A thrown voice,
or. Thrown rice. Awakens to trick.
an eye so. The ear politely yields.
Half-in song. Sufficient at. Ways.
To lack. Luster love, then.
Lose.

Kindred

Eva shuffles twin iron pots makin’ room
for fry-pan on grief’s charred burner. Supper
fork and spoon washed clean. Plate soakin’, Eva
wrings cold hands ‘neath dead mama’s threadbare quilt.

Not one for roses, she’ll pick what Alden’s
due: braid stems to toss on his weedy grave.
In honeysuckle snares, she spits and swears –
Alden, you’ll rot in hell’s dungeon now on …

Bastard lynched her lover, Burl, then slung his
black corpse in the Yadkin to drift on down.
Like whitewashed bed sheets, Alden’s knot still haints
the homeplace. She pines over Burl’s strong hands.

Lust’s passion spirals, clouds where night hawks fly –
she learnt hate’s peace serving Burl’s killer lye.

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Sam Barbee most-recent collection is titled Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). Three previous collections include That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. Also, Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag) which chronicles family travels in England.

His poems appeared in Poetry South, Salvation South, Dead Mule School of Literature, and Streetlight Magazine, also upcoming in Cave Wall, among others; plus on-line journals Ekphrastic Review, Verse Virtual, Grand Little Things, and Medusa’s Kitchen; and is a two-time Pushcart nominee.