Brian E. Langston is a poet and musician living in Baltimore, MD, where he masquerades during the day as a computer programmer. He has organized many artistic events in Charm City, including a 50th anniversary celebration of the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and has hosted events at the Maryland State Poetry and Literary Society's Third Sunday reading series at the Minas Gallery and at the Baltimore Book Festival. His poems have recently appeared in Attic, Poems Against War, and Octopus Dreams, and his short stories have been featured in the Hamilton Stone Review and JMWW, among other publications. You can find him online at MayhemOnward.com
Summer 2008
Table of Contents - Vol. IV, No. 2
Poetry Translations Non-Fiction Fiction Essays
Brian E. Langston
old vases often break like this:
a chip here, a crack there, & the next thing
you know you're on your knees, picking
through dried petals & pieces of enameled clay.
who gave you those roses & why did you
save them for so many years?
you tried to grow them for so long
& when even the parched earth cried out
you continued to pray for rain, until finally
the seeds hardened in the dust.
now, when you collect what's yours, the idols
& icons of memories faded, sealing them
in boxes you're just as likely never
to open again, I wonder: how much of this
fiction mattered, & was it really me
who gave you those roses, so long ago?
for HR
So you're tending horses now up in Washington,
if last I heard recalls correct, though it's been a while
and I guess anywhere can call the wild herds
grazing mustangs in Nevada or even Shetlands
on gray-skied English Isles.
Of course, if I'd've thought it through better
back that spring I spent chasing a different girl…
But hindsight, well, you know how that goes.
Still, I wonder, watching the sun set into the ocean
from up top the bluffs, if you miss the sea.
But then I think of the wild fields rippling
in sundowner breeze, enough for anyone, especially a woman
riding stallions bareback, hair a fiery sunset mane,
shoulders glistening, hips and thighs
in perfect rhythm
with the slow
moving
earth.
© Brian E. Langston
