Poetry

The Argotist Online

Home Articles Interviews Poetry Features Ebooks Submissions Links

JOHN G. HALL

John G. Hall studied Reading Social History at Lancaster University. He writes plays, short stories and poetry and is editor of the poetry, arts and current affairs magazine, Citizen 32. He has performed poetry in Manchester, Bolton, and Liverpool (U.K.). His poetic influences are William Blake and Robert Creeley. He has been published in Iota, Rain Dog, The Wolf, Brittle Star, Left Curve, Aesthetica, Spume, Carillon, The Ugly Tree, The Long Islander (NY), Coffee House Poetry, Sol, and Current Accounts. His recent collection of poetry The Drowning Fish (Bewrite Books) is now available.

THE FIRST MARRIAGE

a heart on a rope a swinging red brick
a clapper wick of love snug in it's soft bell,

my Angelus hands pulling the hours out
our prayers un-peeled by the toll of breath,

we lay threaded bare on the marriage bed
the cuddle of blood drizzled on the altered cloth.

BUT YOU FLY

I blew you a kiss
and your pink dust
clung to my lips,

soft human touch
pushed your leather wings
to self-destruct,

but your tequila tongue
uncurled down my throat
and licked upside my soul,

and now my mind
arches up on tip toe
a drunken poet trying
to open up and fly.

I SEE NO ME

(A cremation speaks)

Never think you know
how the flame feels,

merely because you see
by the electron ejection
the shadows inside me,

merely because my meat
warms the singular self
on light's quantum split.

Until the wick gutters
in the wax puddled moat,

the black twist brittle
the last breath caught.

A candle gasp raising
an Indian smoke signal,

telling of the secret phoenix
flapped from the chimney.

Only when the tallow
is cold & left to set,

does meaning radiate
from the lost thread.

THE SPRING FREEZE

the sun is cool today
light runs me through
ice grass burned white
Sunday flowers dazed,

we curl in our bakery
undercover cooking
our bagel flesh softly
twisting in the glaze,

our dough loops touch
the sugar swimming out
soaking in coca darkness
we gingerly dunk and drip,

outside the noon frost bites
on the glass stemmed roses,
the morning's perma-hunger
sated by our hot comfort.

COUPLES

the skylark sings to hide a silence
the honey bee eats no sweet honey

the drowning fish gasps on the sea
the unasked girl still loves to dance

the nervous boy as brave as death
the full hearts well a dry nibs love.