Three Poems, Edward Tedrow

 

Open this poem 

 

From the piece of my brain  

that thinks elsewhere I want 

to flick open this poem 

like a Zippo and light 

a fire on your arm hair, 

the impetus to jump out 

of the box you confine 

your noggin in.  I want  

to flip open this poem 

to reveal the inner intentions 

the true guts of it.  I want to scatter  

the words like a deck of cards,  

a puerile shuffle, and see down  

past them the depth of which 

I am currently unaware.  I  

want to dissolve   

this poem to reveal a  

single poetic atomic 

itching awe in my mind. 

Black Spot 

 

Sitting on my sofa, something  

catches my attention 

in my peripheral. 

There is a black spot on my ceiling. 

Its shape is unclear from this distance. 

I think I have not seen it before 

but I may have seen it  

everyday, an irregular in the drywall, 

and return to reading my magazine. 

After some time I look at the spot again. 

It seems closer to me.  

It is closer to me. 

It’s a bug.   

There’s a damn bug  

in my house.   

Bastard! 

It moves toward me  

when I am not watching 

and stays still 

when I stare. 

Like death. 

Dark. 

Creeping.   

Motionless.  

Everyday. 

Every single day. 

Each time I glance up  

I hope to see it retreating 

having found nothing to  

feed on. It must have found 

something to feed on. 

I look again minutes later 

and it is closer still, 

of course. 

Soon it will be overhead, 

of course. 

Soon it will fall in my lap 

and I will cuss jump and jerk  

like I didn’t know  

it was going to happen. 

The Smell of Honey      

 

Some say my dog loves me.  Honey seems happy  

to see me but I see her as more needy than loving.   

Every day she roams the manicured back yard  

and eats dog food that I buy at a grocery.   

While her snacks vary a little the same dog food  

is out for her every day.   As she lies down she listens 

  

and wonders when again she will be petted or fed.   

When I lean down to touch  

my forehead to hers  

I smell the matted hair of 

an ancient wolf hungry, chasing  

a meal on a clumpy prairie  

 

panting panting  

missing and missing.   

On another chase  

and missing again.   

Catching the next one  

on the fuel of desperation.   

 

I smell the tearing  

of flesh and the yanking  

of meat that does not  

want to leave the bone.   

I smell the luxury of blood  

all over the sated wolf’s snout and paws.   

 

I owe it to Honey to pull  

on a rope with her.  When I lean down  

to touch my forehead to hers,  

Honey smells a man  

bewildered in a supermarket  

wondering if he’s lived his life right. 

Edward Tedrow lives in Slidell, Louisiana with his wife.