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Best Poems From
LAURENCE OVERMIRE
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373.
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Sink Hole
He made the mistake of standing on top of the television set.
He thought maybe he could conquer it, I guess
But instead
It swallowed him up and burped him out into an
Infomercial.
And if we dont pay $149.95 in six easy installments
Well probably never see him again.
(Previously published in The Short North Gazette, Jan.2003)
Laurence Overmire
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374.
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Sins of the Fathers
In Seventeen Hundred and Forty Nine
A long ago lost relation of mine
Sailed from Germany
Never to return.
Across tormented seas
He launched his spirits
Cast his dreams
To set foot at last
On soil Philadelphia
And in the decades furling hence
His blood traversed
At last to me
A legacy he could not foresee
To be German
In the twentieth century.
I look in horror
Celluloid clips
Detached and yet
Somehow connected
Of mutilations, deaths
Atrocities
Committed by an alien hand
The bony fingers stretched
In accusation
My blood revolts
Impassioned by the faint Sieg Heils
Still drumming through the marrow
The cold hard stamp of jack boot feet
The crisp salutes, heels clicking on cement
Jawohl! Jawohl! Jawohl!
Sieg Heil! !
Awakened in the dead of sleep
Sweat dripping from the chin
Fingers clutch the windpipe
Eyes wide in disbelief
Six million lie in unmarked graves
We weep our disremembered tears
And in our righteous seeming fury
Cry what devil hath made you German!
Twas enough to be a man.
(Previously published in Ygdrasil, Nov.1999)
Laurence Overmire
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375.
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Skin Deep
A freak was born in
Bethlehem.
His skin had no color.
So people couldnt tell if
they were supposed to love him or
hate him.
(Previously published in Barbaric Yawp, Sept. '99, Vol 3, Issue 3)
Laurence Overmire
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376.
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Some Old Guy Named Keats
Some old guy named Keats
Keeps singing in my ear
Lilting melodies of long lost lore
While Byron and Shelley
Croon their bitter
Sweet harmonies of love
Rappin on my shotgun sensibilities
Modern improprieties shod with lust and gore and
Bloody insatiable war
Hard-assed verbiage too rank
To hold a purity that harkens
To a simpler time
A simpler place
A simpler way
Of being
But dont let me go, boys
The tuning in and out of syncopated time
Spans eons of dreaming nights
Till a new heart burns with the hearing
Of an ancient voice
In an ever-ripening world.
(Previously published in Art Villa, Aug.1999)
Laurence Overmire
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