Tag Archives: Thomas Davis

September 8, 2015 · 8:38 am

Incident on Washington Island

After the Civil War
a Miltonian Sonnet with a Double Coda

by Thomas Davis

As Ambrose Betts gulped down the whiskey shot
That Gullickson had given him, his face
Was flushed, the muscles in his neck a knot
So tight he winced, his outrage out of place
Inside the cabin’s half lit single room.

“A Winnebago brave! I tell you Gullickson,”
He said. “As large as life inside the gloom
Of Miner’s kitchen, Bullock looking drawn,
As if he’d seen a ghost, as black as coal.
I’ve never seen the like before!” he yelled.
“An Indian, white man, black man like a shoal
Of pebbles on a beach. The Indian held
His hand up, said, I swear, to Bullock, “You,”
He said. “The first white man I ever knew.”

“Old Bullock, black as night,
Smiled with those teeth of his
So dazzlingly bright white
My head began to fizz.

“And Miner looked like God
About to haul back, smack
The Indian into sod.
A white man that is black!”

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August 7, 2015 · 11:14 am

“By God, They’re Protecting Salamanders Rather Than Human Beings!”

comment heard in a restaurant in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin
by Thomas Davis
An Italian Sonnet
 
When Darwin saw gradation in a finch
That flits about Galapagous[1], he saw
One species modified in beak and claw
By choices made adapting to the flinch
Of circumstances born out of the wrench
Of geologic time, the pitch and yaw
Of land and ocean, weather systems raw
With winds that shape the land that rainstorms drench.
 
But in his old age earthworms sang the song
That sirened through the studies that he did[2],
The deaf and blind regurgitator dug
Into plain ground turned soil, the endless round
Of earth built by the living plows that slid
Fecundity out of the realm of slugs.

[1] Darwin traveled to the Galapagos Islands on a ship named Beagle where he developed the theory of evolution out of his observations of the gradations between a number of species, including a finch.
[2] Earthworms was Darwin’s last book, published on 10 October 1881, just six months before he died.
 

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April 11, 2015 · 10:04 am

Four Black Swans

a Spenserian Sonnet

by Thomas Davis

Four swans, crow-feather black, fly low above
The lake’s ice, white with tints of apple green.
Upon a red roof ravens, croaking of
The way the blue-black of their feather’s sheen
Swift shadows on the snow’s white shining, preen
Into a circle, stirring whispering winds
That cause white wisps to pirouette, careen
Across the fields as daylight slowly ends.

A black cat tops a hill and then descends
Into a field where fourteen cats have made
A ring beneath a full moon; each pretends
The others aren’t as eyes glow green as jade —

The wind blows cold; the silver moon is bright
As black swans fly into the spell-bound night.

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March 5, 2015 · 8:26 am

The Ballad of the Barn

by Thomas Davis

“They’ve always been half nuts,” she said.
He frowned, looked pained, and shook his head.
 
“No matter what, they’re still my brothers,”
He said.  “I almost hear my mother’s
Exasperation as she thinks
About the neighbor’s tongues, the stink
They’ve put the family in again.”
 
As pretty as an elf, her grin
Lit up her face and dark green eyes.
She looked up at the winter skies.
“Storms come and go,” she said, “and tongues
Will wag as long as songs are sung.”
 
“But Willie drove the tractor through
The barn’s west wall,” he wailed.
 
“The brew
That Sammy brews could make a knave
Out of a saint inside his grave,”
She laughed.  “They had a high old time
Until their words became a crime
Against their sense, and Sammy blocked
The barn door, shotgun ready, cocked. . .”
 
“The tractor didn’t even stall,” he said.
“It smashed right through the wall and fled
Into the fields as Sammy laughed
As if he’d taken up witchcraft
And addled who he was and sent
His soul into dark devilment.”
 
“They’ve lived together all these years,”
She said.  “They’re old now.  Human fears
Stalk dreams and make them long to see
A day when aching bones are free
Of pain, and memories aren’t lost
With morning dew or winter frost.”
 
“You give them credit when I’d like
To treat them like two kids and strike
Them with a pliant willow switch.
The tractor’s wrecked inside a ditch,
The barn’s west wall is half a hole. . .”
 
She stopped him with her hand, a droll
Look sparking flitting feelings shuttered
Like screens across her face.  He muttered,
Alarmed at how she looked at him.
He’d never felt so ill or grim.
 
“They’re old enough. . .”
 
She shook her head.
“They’re ninety eight years old,” she said.
“What is a tractor or a barn?
Ten grandkids hence, they’ll tell this yarn.”
 
He startled, grinned, chagrinned, and said,
“My mother’s neighbors are all dead.”

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February 14, 2015 · 8:47 am

A Lover’s Song

by Thomas Davis

We strung along a priceless string of stars
And made the moon a pendant just to show.
I cut the night into a dress, the bars
Of moonlight setting stars and dress aglow.

You laughed with love deep in your doe-brown eyes.
You swirled the universe upon your hem.
As dizzy as a lover filled with love’s first lies,
I watched your eyes grow dazzled by your gems.
 
Then, with a shrug, your dress fell to the ground.
The night became a puddle at your feet.
Stars glistened in a heap, their skies cut down.
The moon gleamed silver-cold without your heat.
 
We swirled together deep into the night,
Our years illuminated, blazing light.

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August 24, 2014 · 10:11 am

2

by Thomas Davis

2

He talked about the mirror of the lake,
reflected trees and cloud and sky, the still
so absolute, the waters dark, opaque,
no wind, no breath, no birds, no human will
to mar the moment made for memory
entangled in the webs of days and hours
that jumble, jangle, pounce, drone, laugh, and flee
across and through the fields of flowers
surrounding us and all the love we miss
but know inside our livers, gall stones, hearts
as hours blend into hours and all our bliss
becomes a mirror that is but a part
of floating on a lake of trees and sky.

As rain begins to fall, a loon begins to cry.

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July 27, 2014 · 6:40 am

14

by Thomas Davis

On Friday nights I’d work all day, then walk
home from the office where two teenaged girls
were streaming past their mother with their talk
about this boy, this girl, their endless whirl
of friend, near-friend relationships that bloomed
and changed like clothing changed from day to day.

The minute that I touched the door excitement spumed
as I gulped down a meal before Green Bay—
and then we drove for forty country miles
to where two girls could dance and laugh to songs
and show that small town girls had mastered styles
that big town girls would envy all night long.

I sat inside a dinghy Burger King
and read while daughters spread their teen club wings.

Note: This sonnet was published earlier on fourwindowspress.

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July 16, 2014 · 7:35 am

The Rhyming of Love

by Thomas Davis

Our fathers died, and then your mother left
And took a train ride to her resting place.
There are no words for senses left bereft
The moment living left our son’s good face.

Our love was glory when it first began to bloom.
We walked brown hills and felt the sky breathe light—
You took your hesitant, unlikely groom
And gave him more of life than was his right.

The days of work and turmoil, gladness, stress,
Have slowed us down and made us feel our years
As separateness has ground against the press
Of love through joyous days and bitter tears.

From gnarling roots of memories and time,
Love forges symphonies of changing rhyme.

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Image

In the Woods, Beside a Lake

In the Woods, Beside the Lake

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June 24, 2014 · 7:04 am
June 23, 2014 · 6:27 am

Beauty’s Human Scent

by Thomas Davis

As cold as morning mist upon a hill
Above the lake that danced light from the sun,
The woman stood and felt a warning chill
That screamed at her and made her want to run,
But, frozen, scared, she turned toward the wood
And shadows where a massive white wolf stood.

She did not move. The wolf’s wild, pale green eyes
Stared balefully at her, its body tense
With energies she somehow felt, the skies
Above them darkening with clouds so dense
A twilight lengthened shadows, made her feel
A rush of fear she thought she should conceal.

Eyes fixed on her, the wolf stepped from the trees
So slowly that she barely saw him move.
She could not make her rigid legs unfreeze,
But stared back at the wolf as if to prove
The fear she felt was courage free of fear
Though pale green eyes, half closed, made death seem near.

The wolf crouched down as if to spring at her,
But then its head jerked north toward a stand
Of young white pine, eyes concentrated, fur
Around its neck alive. The woman’s hand
Moved, broke paralysis. A great gray bear
Rose up inside the pines, the wolf’s cold glare.

The bear glanced at the woman as she backed
Away from wolf and bear, then, anthracite
Inside its eyes, glared at the wolf, strength stacked
Against a spirit brimming with a light
That darkened morning skies and choked the day
With time suspended as it stalked its prey.

The great bear roared. The white wolf bared its teeth
And growled, its spirit kicking up a breeze
That blew into the bear’s black eyes beneath
A dead still canopy, the forest’s trees
Now covered with a brooding, bristling night
Contrasting with the wolf’s bright, shining white—

And then the wolf was gone, the bear alone.
It stared at where the wolf had stood and felt
The emptiness beneath the trees, the drone
Of singing wind as rain began to pelt
The ground and run in muddy rivulets
That clouded in the bear’s stirring spirit.

At last the bear fell down and stuck his claws
In earth, the human woman haunting him:
The fear inside her eyes, the wolf’s white paws
Prepared to spring into the stunning hymn
Of beauty circling her, the way she held her head
As wolf’s eyes counted her as prey soon dead.

The bear sniffed stormy air and found the path
She’d used to flee the wolf and him and stalked
Toward impossibility, an aftermath
That could not be, that mocked him as he walked
In air perfumed with beauty’s human scent,
A woman’s song of being, heaven sent.

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