Poems
Poems by Ted Davis have been published in a variety of literary journals.
If you wish to read more poetry from a new collection "Gathering Wood, Gathering Dusk", contact the writer.
Samples:
Slaughterhouse Floor
by
Ted Davis
Ain't sawdust enough
on the slaughterhouse floor
to soak it up.
So hose it down--
the blood, I mean.
Or wade right in
hip deep and stand
where the blood pools
and consider.
They smell it--
the blood, I mean.
As on they come
down the chute,
bleat and low,
bellow and scream.
They know it--
the blade, I mean.
The steaming knife,
they know.
And still they rise
and fall to it.
Consider the cut,
chosen with design,
without malice
to slice away
a cloven life.
What's undone
cannot be stitched
together back to bone.
The chop and hock
we cleave.
Shoulder and haunch
we hang.
The blood
we leave
on the slaughterhouse floor.
The dream pools--
the blood, I mean.
Consider them.
Smell them.
Go into them
face down, up to the elbow.
It will clear
the rest to come.
Wedding Dance
by
Ted Davis
Common as leaves, we are
not leaves or fish or fowl; we are
tidal creatures though, beginning
at sea, coming to land at last.
We could run on the edge, wind-blown,
drawn to sea, searching for land forever, and yet
we choose to stand under the canopies
of flowers or gold or uncertain skies
and swear fidelity to
the uncommon other.
We bless our house
with salt and bread or rue perhaps we are
not swans irrevocably bound, the longing does
not end for land and sea do not join they meet
and dance the pipers’ dance not as
lovers paired
but circled all in one elemental reel
of earth and air and fire and water
till dawn has come and then
the two-by-two is in the walking home.
Harley Ride
by
Ted Davis
On the back of that Harley
our Nance muckled onto John
and rode the only road
she would ever know
or care to know.
No wild child, biker babe here,
just a singularity of intention.
Big risk that.
The paint slashers, sun dancers,
tune wailers, stone killers
and even the occasional tale chaser
know the feel of choosing the one
mean machine that roars
and growls and passes by
the buses and the big rigs
and has no room
or time for getting off or on,
no easy adding extra baggage.
Just wind and dust and a weather
eye on the road dead ahead.
The raw motion of love directed.
Any fool can see
it’s all in the holding on.
Raising the Altar
by
Ted Davis
Mounding the produce.
Heating the kettles.
Peeling tomatoes.
As if such a thing could be done by mere mortals.
Undaunted you steamed and blanched and sliced
your zucchini too large for a plate but
reduced in the pot to a pickled shadow
of prodigal self.
And towards the harvest end, you bagged the drops
of macs for sauce blushed with ever bearing juice
to a royal ripeness suitable for more than toast.
Preparing the goods
for putting by
season after season,
you raised your altar of plenty on cellar racks.
We would count the losses by the winter
waiting for the resurrecting day when
you emerged, bearing sweets to table,
masonry urns
holding all that mortally remains
of profligate summers come and gone.
But when the apple of your eye fell too close to the tree,
what did you harvest then and put by for the one
long winter that never ends in spring?
What can be preserved from that fatal conflagration
beyond the light in the jar of crab apple jelly ‘73.
Threshold
by
Ted Davis
In my mother's house are dogs.
They meet me on the threshold.
Demanding much. Each.
The one is sure of place.
Iron gait.
Growling drum.
Barring even
Charon's fare
from my mother's house.
The other poor in hands.
Craving shape.
Whining reed.
Beggaring
Judas fate
for my mother's house.
The two will keep the son
tithed in blood.
Threshold bound.
Knave beyond
Janus gate
to my mother's house.
In my mother's house are dogs.
Forever on the threshold.
Cerberus we. Three.
