Two Poems by R L Swihart

The Immigrant

The snare can be easily drawn: a frame within a frame, a mauve-pink storybook opening onto a sea of rolling green hills.  The newlyweds atop the highest hill, wedding-cake close, gazing—cliché or no—at the sickle moon

*

Waiting is impossible: competing narratives and scribbled margins.  Cutting a half-inch from the stems, she places the daffodils in a simple vase and pours in the cool water.  Within an hour: white stars opening to yellow centers

*

Eternal life is death and Egon renders it perfectly: Sleeping Beauty, two claws, and a chessboard blanket

Rattigan Glumphoboo

In their case the two curves cross once a day

They never speak in English and Klee is their chi-rho

Today’s fare: Polish and The Creator

Their clothes and underthings are on the chair

Something I didn’t get and something I didn’t get

Which I’ll quickly fill with: Come! Come! Furioso, let’s sail

And now, because I can, I confuse us with them

About the author

R L Swihart was born in Michigan but now resides in Long Beach CA. (He just completed a “road trip” — from Long Beach…

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Issue 05 · June 2009

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