"the sword that kills" and "you live with your head an awful long time"

the sword that kills

 

the sword that kills you

is the sword that saves

god appears as a gush of spring water

from the soil

 

born into a story

that presupposes

an undetectable deity

and a myth of damnation

 

I’ve heard there are

no atheists in hellholes

but every day 

one is born there

 


 

you live with your head an awful long time

 

i

 

you live with your head

an awful long time

 

in a sea of pure bones

pulled under waves

where the sea is entangled

with the grave

and the last tree

in a cleared field

 

hell is hell

something below the surface

you want to touch

but can’t handle

 

don’t fell that last tree

the faeries that live in there

will come for you 

 

 

ii

 

I don’t know anything about that,

butterfly—

but by the power of being wind

 

you live with your head

an awful long time

and sometimes you just 

get bored

 

when you get

to talking to yourself

and worrying

and rejecting

and arguing

with people who aren’t there

and you can’t relax, ever

 

troubled by voices

also known as “mind dictation”

 

this misshapen gut is mine

this misshapen word is mine

this misshapen mind

all mine, this is all I have–

 

Blind in one ear

deaf in one eye

 

because you know

when you lead with your best intentions

you are still stuck with yourself

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Dennis Formento

Dennis Formento lives near New Orleans. His poetry books include Spirit Vessels (FootHills Publishing, 2018) Looking for An Out Place (FootHills, 2010,) and Cineplex (Paper Press, 2014.) Chapbooks include Hand Signals (Fell Swoop, 1989,) The Big Book of Holy Wars,with Arturo Pfister, No Name Press, 1992,) William Faulkner Lives and Dies in Camelot, (BullHead Press, 1995) Ra Blues Are (Upteem Press, 2003).  Edited Mesechabe: The Journal of Surregionalism, 1991-2001. He has collaborated with musicians locally and in Italy. Dennis has organized readings for 100,000 Poets for Change, since 2011. In September 2023 Dennis won first prize for poetry manuscript of the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society, for Phaeton’s Wheels (Lavender Ink, 2024).