Maureen Owen

eventide

the moonflower opened it's zinc white flowers
in Greek it was literally late

tonight
shall I read   
the Field Guide       or
this biblical script 

thought Frankenstein  

Mozart’s Starling

I delight    to write     in pencil
a salute to Thoreau's family's business

I wave
as his mother      brings clean clothes
to him

in his little cabin
built of pencils

Sleeping on a bed of dimes

most cozy of the coinage       

Butter be our caviar     our ochre of salvation
a refugee  from sadness     where gathered
without a crowd      maximums zip rapid
bikes   faded tin  on icy roads    cross
each other's direction    broad brushstrokes
capsize in tissued light  

text me your    elbows    
everyday   like the end of the earth     
throw me      a stirrup      before   it's too late
Goya painted  his darkness        in oils
onto the walls     of two rooms
his Black Paintings       for himself
reflections on the limbs       of mankind   
the world's          dissatisfied   
evicting toward us   

blending in         is on the rise again 
and all the builders      sing   in Spanish

the shooter was armed with 
two semi automatic AR-15 style rifles 
and a handgun

Spinning and reeling    in the engulfing fusillade
the children cannot hear their teacher
desks blow apart     the day cannot restore
the shattered purity   and bone
a horror bursts unthinkable by these    and all who
saturated   fall    among the fallen

Our leaders pose no solution         gun makers 
gleefully bank their profits

It seems must come a killing too far
it seems a tipping point will tip 
willy nilly bullets spewing
into those of no defense
but startled eye  and innocence

---

Maureen Owen's latest title is everything turns on a delicate measure, BlazeVOX Books. Recent  publications let the heart hold down the breakage  Or  the caregiver's log, Hanging Loose Press and  Poets on the Road, City Point Press. Former editor and chief of Telephone Magazine and Telephone Books, she is the author of thirteen books of poetry.  Her title Erosion’s Pull, Coffee House Press, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Balcones Poetry Prize. Her collection American Rush: Selected Poems, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and her work AE (Amelia Earhart), a recipient of the prestigious Before Columbus American Book Award. Website: maureenowen.com