Maurice Oliver
Buoys & Wild Hibisucs
A day spelled out in light. Scores
of soft May violets. A weather vane
that refuses to spin. Wild carrot
or cherry. Replicas of ocean slur.
Dog bark. The decay of small life.
Larkspur or blue moss. The logic of
beehives. Spirit weed. Low flying
swans. Music mostly of soft guitars.
Slowly peeling away the meanwhile
of “meanwhile”. Bright red lanterns.
A dingy on a calm shore. Driving
between the dunes. Waiting for the
bridge to close. Colors not in a
rainbow. Gulls with clams in their
beaks. Spades or slugs. A moment
of machine-gunned dead slience. One
night a train whistle. Paper flowers or
maybe a moon. Sky colors swirling.
A chalking road with no ditch in the
headlights. It was no minor wind.
Then a light rain for days.
Maurice Oliver spent almost a decade working as a freelance photographer in Europe. Then, in 1995, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months, recording his experiences in a journal instead of pictures. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in The Potomac Journal, Circle Magazine, Bullfight Review, Tryst3 Journal, The MAG, Eye-Shot, The Surface, Wicked Alice, WordRiot, Taj Mahal Review(India), Stride Magazine(UK), Retort Magazine(Australia), & online at subtletea.com, undergroundvoices.com, friggmagazine.com, tmpoetry.com, zafusy.com, girlswithinsurance.com, & interpoetry.com (UK). He lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a tutor. His poetry blogsite is:www.bloxster.net/mauriceoliver.