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Five Poems
by Jared Carter
Adultery
Although
it sometimes happens
– wrong
half giving way
To
might have been
– as in
the song
the radio plays
Before
I reach to change
the dial.
Don’t turn
it off,
You say, I like
the glow. And
while
we soon enough
Must
let it go, it
almost seems
this moment in
A darkened room
with you redeems
what some call
sin.
Cross-harp
Something
about her seemed
suffused
with other days;
A thousand times
I’d heard
the blues
but not this way
–
As
though somewhere
near Pontchartrain
she’d caught
the sound
The barges make,
or that freight
train
that comes around
When
you’re not
listening, and
blows
the moment back
Again. When only
green light shows
along the track.
Vow
Now,
by that dark entanglement
in which we knew
That neither time
nor space had
lent
dimension to
Our
souls entwined
– so that,
unspooled
and distant, we
Would ever be
attuned, and schooled
invisibly,
Each
to the other bound
– by this
I swear. And who
Conveys the stars
will know this
kiss
proves us both
true.
Priestess
You,
sibyl, elusive
taper
in that bleak
house,
Hoarding your
scribbles on paper
like any mouse,
Your
secrets safe in
a drawer –
hardly caring
If anyone ever
saw or
thought of sharing
Such
treasure. Yet
always for you
the rising fumes
Of the eglantine,
the deep blue
of those dark
rooms.
Sounion
Lord
Byron, too, who
courted fame,
and carved this
stone,
And many other
travelers came,
who now, unknown,
Sleep
in Poseidon’s
cave. Only
their letters
here
Give evidence
they braved the
lee
and fought to
steer
Along
this coast. The
sea, aflame
with countless
rays
Of sun, keeps
neither verse
nor names
among its waves.
Copyright
2014 by Jared
Carter
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