Brent House
Augur of Wright
Sorghum pours drone through assurance of pipes
to quell a rally of sympathy
& a Georgian child wants music flowing
sweet as stamen incised
from honeysuckle & wisteria
petals pestled into morning robes of resurrection
come down from the hill.
A memory of a simple cottage gone from the square
& restored by the gifts of a hand-carved chancel
& a chancel window of old
English glass & a new roof inverted by ship-makers
& walls of beaded boards
filled with the remains of elders transformed simply.
Such great loss & relative little evidence
dents in the hardwood
an overseer dead
dead in a let him save himself March
what so rose in December
only fragrant memory
in June when the sea has reached to the lake once more
when mentors pass a smoldering
over the river & marred passes.
Augur of Blackberries
Scars the teeth of briars
measure as much as stain seed a bucket filled with urgency
awaiting the cover of cream the hollow
reserve
sacred to the sweet reduction rolled bread soaking in the drips of broken bearings found
under the line & away from the tromp in our lost & found fecund past
the rows we stretch not seeking greener pastures but finding sweet flows
below the barbing rows.
Augur of Flailing
The mantic threnody of the mockingbird mourned from a plum branch
a cruel hope passing
a cruel boy pointing at exposures of white breast
& resounding strange fruit
his copper seeds arching imperfect through the air
eyes following a slow progression
Lord I lament quail with remorse of intransigent sin
& touch light still flailing by reverbs
damp is the hole from which I pluck the bead
the chamber ruddles with shot return
a body held quivers with terrene blood
Lord you mistake me much for I lament
this medley so dueled by asperity
& carry such parabolic loss in scaffoid palms
as meager penance for an arbitrary disgrace
enclose true resonance in the rooted soil
wailing clods into wrenching veins.
Brent House grew up in Necaise, Mississippi, where he raised cattle and watermelons on the family farm. His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, Third Coast, and elsewhere. He earned his M.F.A. from Georgia College & State University.