wildscape. literary journal

Frontarrears
by L. Ward Abel

Dark blue bottomless sinkhole
crosses skies to the west
deep, above
as if we’ve grown used to
living upside down
on this green dangle
full of leaves
and moving.

Empty air the victim
of its dark other
the current sways
branches, spired
heads of hair breathe along
with everything nailed
to the ceiling-blue floor
its cobalt soul
raining up.

The Score
by L. Ward Abel

I.
As I get older, clearer, the glint means more.
Here the old bell beside my Quaker barn
won’t ring. They call red cedars boundary trees
but mine scatter in the open. Times are restive
wired, taut. A loud family of geese lives
at my pond now. Where will they go?
Where will we go?
Still, things almost sparkle.
Not in a good way.
II.
Words can thwart. Morning never breaks.
The seconds lose by gradation. History
can never progress, always guilty
of having been. Flight-path roars
turn silent with altitude.
A hideout life of night grinds away
and changes your name. Colors
lose meaning in the absence of
light, sound. Still,
there are only
absolutes.
III.
Preferring Chopin’s nocturnes to chaos, I
pour a drink. Cool for late Spring, burdened.
Eastern flyway contrails form crosses
eight, nine miles up. Still, a blue belies
turbulence. The green belies a lack of
planting. A wound shows no promise
but the flailing drama. And no glint.
Drinking behind battle lines
you’re forgiven
if you don’t know
the score.

about the author // L. Ward Abel