NEW POETRY

(painting by Frederic Remington)

We came to this place,
crowded with stingers and rattles and fangs,
because we too had chaos in us
That miffed chainsaw buzz
booming in our brains

Let me tell you what it was like:
the discontented, the outcast, the felon, the dreamer
discordant with society
living by our own hands, and just barely.

A fist in the jaw hello,
A tenth whisky goodnight.
Gunshots pop down Main like little shouts of joy
Hell, why didn’t everybody go West?

The Tetons stand on the cloud’s shoulders
If you chew a scoop of earth, you’ll chip a tooth on gold.
If this wasn’t Shangri-La,
Surely it was the next hamlet over.

But who needs Big Rock Candy
When we got this sunset?
And when the horizon gulps the glow—
Jesus! Ain’t we got stars!

***

Hal Wright (he/him) is a queer writer whose work has been published in Ninth Letter, The Hunger, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere.