This is a free sample from
The Hunted River, poems by Robert S. King. If you enjoy the work, we hope you’ll consider supporting small independent publishers such as Shared Roads by purchasing the book, available in either print or ebook format. Visit Shared Roads at www.sharedroads.net for more information.
Copyright 2009 Robert S. King
All Rights Reserved
Published by Shared Roads Press
Marietta, Georgia, U.S.A.
The Juggler Tells His Children of Dreams
wear no hard wedding bands
when juggling eggs
let the hands be a clock
circling with the softness of patience
what is falling free
will hatch in a nest of wind
soon you will toss up birds
Cottonmouth Catchers in a Night Swamp
The trick is to charm its bobbing head with light.
Make the devil stare till he’s blind,
and while your flimsy lifeboat crawls toward the other bank,
let your own arm become a snake,
coil back with your right hand open
like a pure mouth capable of swallowing
something bigger than itself.
Let your arm strike as a strangler,
clamp the serpent just below the head,
cram this ancient sinner in a bag.
Now row back to sunrise,
milk him for all he’s worth,
keep him charmed with living light,
never showing him your shadow,
your black spot,
your bullseye.
Dream of the Electric Eel
nothing shocks me
not even the black leaves forming the sky
of this swamp nor my shape
in the dark water dammed with ash
no one to hug me
I am my own arm
have made the absence of touch a weapon
made my voice an image in the current
too late announcing my coming
fishermen throw me back without touching the line
snakes shed a skin of ash
when I grow suddenly warm
underwater lightning
I have left a trail of fire
on the river’s back
for mine is the voice that boils water
yet makes it feel cold
they say an eel is lower than a snake
that even the swamp is above him
but I say I have fallen like a power
line leaping on the river
that when I go down
all I touch twitches
and rises to the top
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgments are made to the following publications in which many of these poems first appeared (sometimes in earlier versions):
Black Bear Review: "The Gentleman Who Woke Up as a Goat,” "Primal TV”
The Bridge: "Lighthouse”
Chants: "The Treasure of Bone”
The Chattahoochee Review: "Men”
Dancing Shadows Review: "The Meaning of Dogs”
En Passant: "The Last Saint of the Empire”
ELF (Eclectic Literary Forum): "The New World Dictionary,” "River Pulse”
Foundling Review: "Knots”
Gaia: A Journal of Literary & Environmental Arts: "What Missing the Cat Means,” "Veterans Know a Purr Is Just an Infant Growl”
The Grasslands Review: "The Glass Heart”
Green Hills Literary Lantern: "Progress”
The Habersham Review: "Regret”
Hammers: "Why I Bought a Truck”
Hudson Valley Echoes: "Wanting to Write Songs”
Innisfree: "Fading Pictures,” "Duality”
Iodine Poetry Journal: "Daydreaming at Rush Hour”
Literary Fragments: "Faith”
The Lucid Stone: "Windfall”
The Lullwater Review: "Prophets Climbing to Machu Picchu”
Main Street Rag: "The Wind Is Often Sudden Here”
Midwest Quarterly: "Treasure Hunt”
Negative Capability: "The Juggler Tells His Children of Dreams”
Neonbeam (U.K.): "Motions”
Opus Literary Magazine: "Punctuation”
Permafrost: "Sanctuary”
Pinyon Poetry: "The Scarecrow at Harvest Time”
Plainsongs: "Miniverse, My Universe”
Poems That Thump in the Dark: "Relativity”
The Purple Monkey: "Direction”
Rain Dog Review: "Road Steam”
Remark Poetry: "Going Through the Motions”
River Poets Journal: "The Last Supper Date”
Southern Poetry Review: "Dream of the Electric Eel”
The Sow’s Ear: "Confessions of the Slower Sprinter”
Spoon River Poetry Review: "The Light Sedative of Dark,” "Earthen Well”
The Stickman Review: "Ice Steeples, Road Signs,” "Rock Road,” "How Trees Travel”
Wind: "Into Some Deeper Night”
Writers’ Forum: "Cottonmouth Catchers in a Night Swamp”
Xanadu: "Ice-Sparkles”
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