Issue 7: Richard Owens, Eight Ballads
EIGHT BALLADS
Columbus Stockade
turned as we lay sleeping—our antiquities
sent their herald with a letter
harvesting new centers—they too turned
from Genoa—followed by atrophy still
some distance from headway
unblinking as I believe they fought against
too many mornings to waste a good deal
their effect grossly mistaken
for the ludic rest of a murtherous wildness
Black Mountain Rag
to cling to—smash—smallest thane
burnished chance to spill
bereaved so kind of a common world
out there in the dark—we poor thing
where were we all night
who could at least come back for good
on these poor legs—taken round
long—into the black
lashing blind at rock & thicket flung
och skammen—affection is so often
an unyielding thing
maligned by a far more available fruit
Early One Morning
hazard ruine—combustion all sides round
they do not deceive in the valley below
when overwhelmed by the deluge they fall
from sense to skies beating like hearts
till then who knew grace could offer up all
burning offal against ceiling cracks
with adverse power opposed—yield unto
a fixt sum masking settlement patterns
stopping at a well to rest—durst dislike
but settle for a place so far afield
stunned by an unconquerable acquaintance
squarely at the center of this cadence
so it beats—blown away by redacted light
how people feed themselves at night
can else inform the blind force of token arms
scouring settled land for branch or bone
Billy in the Darbies
his marrowbones shackled out
(ignore paraphenomena
patterned winds—cycloid—smile
through the trauma in their hearts
(auguries sound this hour
so sleep fathoms deep—slake notes
crossing unsurveyed surfaces
(greasy hogs to brood
on the collateral organs of others
muted—signal bright derivations
(disendowed questions or
the congratulated weight of tongues
Joannie Works with One Hammer
then—she goes to sleep
glaidly to thoill
n qhua is they hounggrie
when they work with two
devastated
by the frost—taken to raise
greit mercie on principle
to lend—drains
gude work instrumental to
three hammers simmer
in the hole
overnight hotter than coal
orchards link directly to
four hammers
quhais power is nocht theys
secured—in the pit—for
their fude they work
with five when then to sleep
Daybreak Blues
an account told or enacted
—tooled into an absence
on the finest milling machine
tomorrow belongs retooled
take the dirt road home
meet undiminisht what untold
to avail though forget we feel
often an instance to grieve
do deceive under sovereign pact
four at the foot six at the head
suffer a surface like blood
burned before us by permission
we belong to an ordered design
scaly rind—enraged
but serving well to bring forth
forthwith the backward slope
in billows blind by right
we run with force for morn delay
House of Sad Retreat
floating rates of exchange remainder
next of kin—an occasion
intensified thereafter—an internal
policy—this act of union
fathom stroud waters convey the whole
—bargaine among thieves
stable reserves—currencies desaturated
by law—so prepared all treasons
administered justice—fast misprisions
—felonys—seditions—calumnys
bullbaiting—cockfighting—bear beating
contract out the public house
Wabash Cannonball
transpierced rounder gliding all
oblivious at length to advance
the jingle—the rumble—the roar
struck do strike iron straight rail
whosoever unknown raises
cosmologies of scale—rippling fall
indiscriminate on the first parable
crying out to all—waving
from the rapid Wabash Cannonball
Richard Owens is the author of Ballads (Habenicht 2011), Embankments (Interbirth 2010) and Delaware Memoranda (BlazeVOX 2008). He edits Punch Press and Damn the Caesars, a journal of contemporary poetry and poetics.
