Alan Britt’s recent books are Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20th & 21st century English poetry magazines with the aim of preserving them for the future has included Britt’s work published in Fire ( UK ) in their project. Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008. Britt recently served as Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2007 in Boston and read poetry at Ramapo College in Mahwah , NJ (2009) and the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River , NY (2008). Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2008. Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown , Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formerly feral cats.
MIST
Like wool strands
through a chrysalis,
mist surrounds
the white ambulance.
A heart beats,
a soul beats.
Beautiful white and brown
field mice
behind the compost pile
harvest each heartbeat.
–
PUMA
A star yells;
the chill is six
feet away.
A patio lattice
with the warmth
of a puma
rubs her diamonds
against
my naked soul.
–
YOUNG MAN REFUSING TO SAVE HIMSELF FROM THE FIRING SQUAD
Mr. Himmler, even if all my grandparents
were full-blooded Christians,
I’d still proclaim them Jews!
You, Sir, are a vile life form,
a parasite
sucking pus from the Devil’s wounds!
And, unfortunately, for you, Mr. H.,
I’ll be around years,
perhaps eons from now, watching
you fall asleep
each night with a warm gun in your mouth!
–
CREEPER FROGS
(After Duane Locke)
A reed in the throat of a creeper frog?
Or a pearl of some kind,
soaked with humidity?
I understand that birds sometimes
resemble verbs,
and adjectives
grow hair of sexual darkness
like mussels
below the black Gulf.
So, why do I wear this shirt of ashes
during my present encounter with grief?
After several days of grieving, I watch my grandfather
rise from his grave and stir blue ashes
around his fireplace, Tampa, Florida, circa 1962.
Then Grandfather nods his head
and I follow him through thick Florida palmettos
dreaming all the while of creepers’ topaz irises
submerged in the humid waistline of darkness.
–
TRUTH
The gutters slurp
white rain
like aluminum gazelles
straining into a crocodile-infested pool.
There are times
when the thirst for truth
completely overwhelms your sense
of trust.
Copyright © 2009 Alan Britt
