Five Poems
by Austin Alexis
Cows at 4:00 AM
One night, the cows trampled the fence
and escaped their meadow.
Slow and heavy, heavy and slow
they treaded across the highway,
then roamed the lawns and patios
directly west of the field they lived in.
In mellow meager moonlight, each cow
meandered through lush darkness.
So little resistance from tall sunflowers
and thriving cattails bobbing in breezes.
Through a home’s glass wall
I saw it all unfold
in the slow-motion tempo
typical of a novel event,
heard moos plod through night air —
moo, moo—
(the cow’s practiced habit).
I even imaged their burnt-wax smells,
and the journeys of their long peppery breaths.
Then, for no reason a human could be sure of,
they became quiet as monks of a cloistered order
or a grand oil painting on dignified display,
as if they needed me to be without distractions,
to survey their bulky presence in silence,
as if they craved to morph into material for a poet
crafting a poem during the hush of night—
the subject matter, the fabric of a poem,
this poem.
Live Stream
The geese wading in the creek.
The geese, four of them,
craning their necks
to pluck and groom their bodies.
The geese, prettier than ducks
but not as lovely as swans.
The geese flapping their wings
at each other
thus engaging in a sign language
beyond the scope of humans.
The geese squatting in peace,
oblivious to the bridge
that arches over the creek,
the asphalt overpass
with its roving cars
carrying people who might as well
exist in another universe.
Safety
A hodgepodge of poplars and pines
close to bushes crowded by cattails
and other weeds I couldn’t identify.
The odor of rank soil and aged leaves
mixed-up with the scents of animals
recently gone to hide in burrows or caves.
They were foreshadowing.
At first, I failed to find my way
out of this confusing bramble,
though I sensed trouble I couldn’t name.
Stationary, I glanced around
while my neck muscles tightened.
Then thunder came, the sound
thick as a beard that overwhelms a face.
Crows disappeared wherever they go
when storms shove onto a scene.
Yet, I couldn’t unplug myself –
my tired teenage legs—
from the wilderness landscape I’d roamed to
without a map, forgetful
of the way back to the closest road
or too confused by panic
to sense the way out of calamity.
As rain and wind assaulted me
I picked one direction and,
climbing over thigh-sized rocks, webby vines,
fallen branches and cracked boulders,
marched forward,
persevered.
Eventually I happened upon a clearing
and, in that delightful space,
the yard of a country residence.
Curated flowers and gravel paths.
Landscaped hedges and painted birdhouses.
I’d made my way back to humankind:
stairs, a front door.
Drenched and shivering, I staggered to the steps,
three levels of bricks.
The house sported lit windows
and I heard music issuing from inside.
But when I knocked on the home’s front door
and rapped again, and finally pounded,
the door didn’t swing open
offering warmth, dryness,
a place where lightning wouldn’t strike.
A Disaster Strikes
Canal water rushes across a terrain,
burrows through towns.
This hurricane hurries colliding clouds.
Something unseen howls.
Each life lost, be it palm tree or human,
has been hounded by a hullaballoo of wind
or a commotion of waves
or a building gone lunatic,
its planks, its lose material
tossed, skied in a hurly-burly.
Dumbfounded animals huddle
in a hell of waiting
for the booms to cease,
for far-away normalcy to find its way
back to the utopia that was.
Electric poles are shocked.
Rumbles rumble below earth crust,
under the density of what has crashed,
beneath the weight of the tragic.
Lashes of rain whip from the sky,
a sky that hovers, invisible,
and has become one gargantuan cloud,
a bruised sky that is far, far from celestial.
Prose Poem for a Stream
Call it a rivulet. Label it a stream. A brook. A sacred creek. It used to flow here, where now there sits only a dry bed of dirt, rock clumps and an occasional twig. Where oh where did all the water go? We stare at the disappearance, the lack of bubbly motion, the absence of twinkling foam. This discovery has torpedoed our afternoon walk. Your mouth drops open in despair. My lips tighten in anger at the thought that anyone would deny the warfare our climate crisis has unleashed upon the land.
BIO: Austin Alexis is the author of the recently published poetry collection The Whirlpool Bath. His poetry and flash fictions have appeared in Rattle, The Journal, Barrow Street, Hawaii Pacific Review, Paterson Literary Review and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference..