R.T. Castleberry
R.T. Castleberry, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has work in Sangam, Glassworks, Gyroscope Review, San Pedro River Review, and Silk Road. Internationally, he's had poetry published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, New Zealand, Portugal, the Philippines, India and Antarctica. His poetry has appeared in the anthologies: You Can Hear the Ocean: An Anthology of Classic and Current Poetry, TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, and Level Land: Poetry For and About the I35 Corridor. He recommends the Houston Food Bank.
I choose a rigid self-denial
from bourbon and curbside service.
Walking out for a drinks,
my doctor confessed to a taste for
chain mail fetish and other men’s wives.
New condo towers leer,
self-conscious on the river walk.
Lean lines of headlights glare over
entry gate, doorman, lobby-high windows.
My wife serves a Texas Jesus,
drafted the kids and a cousin
to a common liar’s cause.
If there’s a fixation beyond
rolled steel fences and firearms
I haven’t heard it.
Sister says it’s redhead Judas
she can place it in the Holy Word
Sheriff leans from the passenger side
says it’s gamblers playing side bets
Curbside beers, meals of tramp stew,
collapse a minister’s graven idol imagery,
diminish metaphor and the morning.
Rancor falls, random as a star.
I have no sense of the way home.
