A.J. Huffman - Three Poems

Justification

after Forms, Hatchets  by Magyari, John the Younger

One stroke

      obliterates two things

creates a third.

Can we call it harmony?

We shade it gold, give it value

cherish it,

label it

worthy

 but hone its edges

to cut its own throat,

drip

red

life.

Can that equation ever equal anything

as soft as pink?

Sky and birds fly,

land

on houses built of sand.  Temporary tragedies.

Axes obliterate forests

erect

permanent shelter for humans that offer

occasional cages

for wayward wings.

This we call reprieve.

***

Sweeter than the Desert’s First Rainfall

The snake slithered into her.  I assumed

I would sleep until the next morning—

didn’t work out that way.  It was not yet warm

outside, but ridiculously hot inside.
Perhaps the effect was from the stress of a new place.

For the first time, unbreathing skin revolted.  

In the feverish concentration, human ovens transform

into something bulged, and accused

me with their stares:  Someone burns the world.

It was the same nightmare [about the skeleton shroud].

***

Stuck Stuttering [In Silence]

The peacock feathers on my finger

nails look

    all glitter-glowy.  Moons

alighted, they spark.  The pen

spears the page.  Are they the prophesied third

eyes of legend?  Or the collective channel

through which the muse now chants?  My wonder

leads to worry.  Twitching,

I pick at their petals.  Peeling, they pit,

split, crack.  They are/I am ruined

by the minutia of such

a misguided thought.