Poetry Archives

T.N.Turner
Poetry from Volume 2 Issue 1

Escape

We finally escaped the city
And live outside Glenwood
Which is no city--
One tells by the smell of it
And body count.

Glenwood City is Steffen's Hardware,
Norm's Barber Shop,
And The Tribune Press Reporter.
The front page news last week
Was a man moved south of town
To raise tomatoes
And a woman visiting a friend fell in a hole.

Glenwood's claim to fame is Big Rock,
Where legend says Jesse James hid out.
Big Rock is on the old Kuchenbaker farm,
And to this day old timers call it
The Kuchenbaker Rock,
And it's the largest rock in the county
Except the county.

The summer we moved
"Was the hottest on record," they said,
Though memory doesn't range very far.

Hurricanes beat eastern shores,
Then weeks of wind and rain
As people inland bore expanding rings
Of resonating anger.

A big oak on the lawn out front
Couldn't resist anymore,
And like grandmother,
Finally broke and fell.

Stargazing

In a city, much is mistaken for stars,
But outside Glenwood, things as they are.

Spring and fall are best for stars.
Mosquitoes don't eat you alive
And the sky is better for seeing,
As astronomers say.

Around Glenwood on a clear night
You can open a door and step into a dark
And hang suspended in a time or a space
Before returning to a house
And closing a door on a universe.

The world so small during day
Only comprehends pay;
Yet, immense with irrelevance it brings,
Night is also wrapped in fatal laws
Of economics.

Tonight,
Stars are clear, bright, immediate,
And cold beyond despair.
Orion marches over the horizon,
Dragging a blue-white sword
Dripping wine dark blood over Earth.

T.N.Turner, Glenwood City, Wisconsin, is a computer specialist and poet. His poetry has appeared in Galley Sail Review, MacGuffin, Crazyquilt Quarterly, Pennsylvania English, Mind Matters Review and more. His second chapbook, Eighteen Early Poems, was published in 1996 by Poetic Page Publications.. He says, "Your first issue as a knockout...Where is Cedarburg?"