The Zingara Project

Tag: Chiron Review

  • Squat by Gale Acuff

    I don’t want to die but I’m not crazy
    about living, neither, I’m ten years old
    and could live a lot longer, multiply
    a decade’s worth of sin and sorrow by
    ten and that’s a century of shit, not
    that good things won’t happen among the bad
    but I’m not so sure of that now, I got
    kicked out of Sunday School today because
    I asked if Adam had a navel, Eve
    as well, and that’s all she wrote – my teacher
    gave me the heave-ho so now I’m squatting
    on somebody’s headstone in the back of
    our church, it’s as quiet as death, ha ha,
    except for some mockingbirds and robins
    so fat they can hardly chirp and when
    class is over I guess I’ll go to her
    and apologize, my teacher that is,
    I guess there are some questions you don’t ask,
    I don’t mean that they’re bad – they’re just too good.

    —

    Gal Acuff’s poems can be found in such literary journals as Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, and many other journals in eleven countries. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. Gale has also taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.

     

     

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  • A Body Found by Will Reger

    The last snow mantle
    drapes your shoulders,
    covers your dark readiness.

    Secretly,
    as I drive past along
    my corridor of labor,
    I love you.

    Secretly,
    white-laced,
    wet and open.

    You are the field
    I will lie down in, to wait.
    Crops will grow up around me.
    They will scrape you bare again,
    leave you bleeding, confused,
    your ditches still unmown,

    and there I will be.

    —

    Will Reger is a founding member of the CU (Champaign-Urbana) Poetry Group (cupoetry.com), has a Ph.D. from UIUC, teaches at Illinois State University in Normal, and has published most recently with Front Porch Review, Chiron Review, and the Paterson Literary Review. His first chapbook is Cruel with Eagles. He is found at https://twitter.com/wmreger — or wandering in the woods playing his flute.

  • The Last Train by Will Reger

    Sister, we are in an ancient place, that last
    station where the living change trains.
    Everyone comes here, tired of living,
    ready to lay it all down, ready to be done,
    or confused how they came here so soon.
    It is you with the transfer ticket, dear, not me.
    After you board I will travel on alone,
    swing back this way some other time.
    Your body jerks and rumbles with shut down.
    The train you need picks up speed.
    Everyone on the platform feels the power
    and starts to gather up their things,
    unaware — no baggage car on this train.
    I would gather you once more if I could.
    Your eyes are two pools of puddle water.
    A last light reflects in each, like hope,
    like the promise of Science or God, or like
    a star falling across the sky, sparking love.

    —

    Will Reger is a founding member of the CU (Champaign-Urbana) Poetry Group (cupoetry.com), has a Ph.D. from UIUC, teaches at Illinois State University in Normal, and has published most recently with Front Porch Review, Chiron Review, and the Paterson Literary Review. His first chapbook is Cruel with Eagles. He is found at https://twitter.com/wmreger — or wandering in the woods playing his flute.