Sunday, July 03, 2011

Jeff Fallis [Part Two]

ALLIGATOR MUSIC


The world is a widescreen dream,
but it’s what we’ve got.

The toenail moon grants us
sleep and silence,

rocks us blues and purples
each blurred and sloppy night

while the sun shines solid as a sigh.
I know I need more vitamin D,

I know I could settle for forked 
& accursed and just smog up

with my arms folded, my under-
carriage protected.  Must be 

gobsmacked and cruel, must be
a stubborn Southern alligator 

to arrive back where you started
and start smashing your pink

and butter brains out
against the bleary mattress

of the house that was your
childhood home.  Out of

lost gusto.  Out of thwarted
love that will redeem you.

Out of faith in the unsteady
bedrock of the landslide

to pickle and boil you
into an openness

bright as the summer heat
on an upended rockpile.



Jeff Fallis is a Ph.D. student in creative writing at the University of Georgia.  His poems have appeared in publications like The Oxford AmericanThe Iowa Review, and Ploughshares and in the anthologies Blues Poems and The Art of Losing.