Mole
I went to ground, ready to break
the gray clock.
My mouth is a warren.
Bring me a field,
a bitter plain to bezzle in
and fear rank as wine.
Poems on the topic: fear
Poems on the topic “fear” on Poets.by.
Outrage addict
I dine on gall
to see in what war
they are, and fat
am I now in my fear.
Anger is life.
Distrust
Into the drink—
a swan places hope.
I am afraid
of the clock, after we go,
counterfeiting our hands.
I never blink.
Rimbaud, 1880
I have borrowed some quiet—
the first in my life—and am
resolved to go. I settle
my accounts with myself
and fear in hand,
furnish my mind with a tent.
The mother
Right at dusk the mother bear
leads her cubs down to
the edge of the woods
& stops, hearing a screen door
ease open, smelling trouble.
My grossly unequal nose picks up
nothing of her musk or
the sweet milk oozing
from well-bit nipples.
My primate eyes are made for
the colors of day, not shades
of darkness. I peer
into every shadow between the trees,
each clot of night.
The space between us fills
with explosions of breath:
Under the gun
In the gun, an excellent doctrine of St. Peter.
I spur myself to be afraid,
to hear little,
and understand without going to see.
Unsettler: An Affirmation
i am prey
i am mammal
pure fear
fires my pistons
my eyebrows
can pupate
i have outgrown
my own hair
earth-bound
descended from the trees
i drink from the gray
breasts of clouds
on hind legs
i hone myself
to the thinness
of a blade of grass
Future Tense
a nameless fear approaches
the crickets fall silent
i hear thin things
like teeth chattering
a heart thudding against
its slaughterhouse pen
my caught breath
turns tenuous as a frayed rope
i hear myself saying go on
you don’t exist yet
oh future
voracious as a vacuum
my own appetites have changed
i can count my ribs
what else would you have
me consume
Night from the inside (2)
pond the size
of a table for four
spring peepers
the distant cry
of a migrant gull
frantic wings
against the window’s
good night moon
I remember how I talked myself out of my fear of the dark at age eight. Or did I? I’ve never been able to watch horror movies — I don’t want those sorts of monsters running loose in my imagination. There are enough real monsters in the news, I say to myself.
Brachiate
I don’t remember the dream that woke me, just that it seemed suddenly very important to breathe, and to go on breathing. To go on, despite fear, loneliness or depression. I thought of a stone I’d found on a walk that was too charismatic to just toss aside but which I knew I had no reason to keep, since I’m in the process of moving out (or was, before the pandemic hit). I put it in my pocket, and a moment later took it out again and set it down beside the trail for some child to find, with its red mineral heart outlined in yellow. I thought of Charles Simic’s definition of a stone as a mirror that works poorly.
brachiate
as if my lungs too
might leaf out
The Hollow (32)
the cousin who once
impersonated a bear
tall tree tales
just there
a barred owl used to blink
at the rare car
dim hemlocked light
recalling my childish fear
at a bobcat’s hiss
hemlock refuge
threatened by needle eaters
I avoid looking up
Tarantism
dancing out of fear
is a great disorder
water going out with the tide
green and cold as old meat
we danced and broke
to be less like God
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