J.V. Foerster


Reversed Shaman

He was spent, left to boil in the sun
a plump snake
in the desert dust
slippery skin
caressing dry death
all around were
stark white bone
she laying between the angry
bones of her husband, the sharp bones
of her dogs,the weeping bones of his ex-lover
looking up in horrorat her swaying
blue white skinhollow skeletal
statue of a ghost woman
rocking their child

-previously published in Eclectica Magazine


Daughter of Enigma

I will pick & choosemy sorrows carefully
call down weather
wind or fog
dance on the mounds
of my dead & lost vices.

I am an unguardedstep daughter
falling from the grace
of a good life
tumbling off the hands
of the creator, a silent
Goddess of small truths
and I am falling
falling
And I tell you
oh poor mother
oh poor father
oh poor poor
waiting family
there is no floor
no foundation
no end for a poet.

-previuosly published in Niederngasse


The Harvest

What's in the length of this poem?
How far in will the roots reach?
How far up will the stalks grow?
Or will it die
as I have allowed
so many things I love
to die before.
It is a seed to me
a tiny oily pod filled with a rich head of harvest dreams.
It carries me this poem
to the stories of my ancestors that I have wrapped my
feet in so I could dance the dance of my people
so that I could breath and
follow a good solid road
to home


The Composer

Two canned lane
Philadelphia
spouting oily dirt
he's looking for anger
to move him
to the right place
sitting for hours
black bitter coffee
buzzing his blood
songs singing soprano
a thousand mosquitoes
whispering in his ear
notes
by 11:00 he'd wave them
away with a beer.

At night fall they became
rich cacophonous symphonies
the crazy rhythm mixed up stanzas trying to
set it up right
get it down right
to play
his rifts into the hollow
night air
ringing loud
on on
for five years he has no sleep
remembering
Beethoven and that there is no peace.

-both poems previously published in Southern Ocean Review