Warmth of Other Suns by GJ Gillespie

 

 

Once More to the Lake

 

The nervy swimmers
    The pinball darters
        Those refuged behind downed oaks

The skimmers gill breathers fin slappers
    The shapeless undulaters
        The graduates of Arthur Murray’s aqua squad

their watery digs lined with cha cha trophies
    Those who skim
        Those who scissor across

Those who dorsal flutter
    The translucent
        Those almost so

The decoy floaters
    Those who plunge at oar wash
        The toothy marauders

Those who wriggle from desire
    bait teasers
        Those fooled by trotlines

Those drawn to diesel & hum
    Those crammed in moss-lined creels
        Those sequestered in plastic pails

Those bloodied on the dock
    fileted
        bathing in shallot butter

Those whose gods reign in nimbostratus
    Those who look down for their recompense
        Those who hold dual citizenship: slither and stroke

Those who park their shells at the shore
    who ping their mucky network with ribbits
        who pluck the double love bass of their larynx

who white belly double jointed
    court skeeters
        and smooch princely dreams

Those who shorewalk and defy
    Those gobbling windblown berries
        larvae and pupae

Those who soil & spatter
    Those who paddle their ire through fishy schools
        Those who make their rounds in goosey flotillas

Beak fishers
    Those who flock
        Those who carpet the chop with still quilled down

Those rowing toward cardiac arrest
    Those who voted Nixon/Agnew
        but now dangle rainbow flags off party barges

Those who yet invoke Ronnie Reagan
    and read their grandkids
        the Little Engine that Could

Those at white trash beach
    on submerged lawn chairs
        Those peddling nostalgia

ice cream in cranked buckets
    marshmallows and melty Grahams
        Those ready for first love

Those who conjure beachside boils: corn and new potatoes
    how lovely your toes can feel in sand
        frosty Hamm’s muggy day

 

 

 

 

What sets our terrier off

 

Tremor in the pea vine
    Twitch in the phlox
        Slither or shiver

or whatever pulls across our dock
    The stank of shrews
        or a whiskery waft

Traffic on some trunk
    skinks running
        their lizardly bunk

The wind of birdy wail
    full sail
        blown up

from our bouldered beach
    Heartbeat in a hole
        an echo of mole

Molt in a feathered pile
    or ammonia
        pooling a while

Sough or sway
    sound seesawing
        sound mumbling away

 

 

 

 

Life as Red-eared Slider

 

These turtles were, widely and cheaply, sold as hatchlings in dime stores and flea markets. Although most didn’t survive long enough to become a burden on their families, some did, and were then released into local waterways.
Introduced Species Summary Project, Columbia University

 

Slide they from parental good graces
    from pet store terrariums
        into lake maw

into shallow weedy ponds
    impoundments
        Slide they

reviled émigrés
    mascot waddle-aways
        Dumped they are

from plastic bags
    from party barges
        Charlie at the rail

I’ll take better care of Iggy
    I swear
        Violet at the stern

shriveling into her teenage carapace
    into watery farewells
        cottage weekend furlough

Wedged they are
    between brown tree snake
        and bushtail possum

seventy-third on the list
    of interloper species
        wreck of the modern world

ruin reckoned in vertebral and marginal scutes
    in egg teeth
        in brumating persistence

Slide they now
    from beech and elm
        and uprooted black gum stumps

heliotropic
    skittish
        melting their despised removal

into oxbow slough
    roadside ditch
        into slow and steady owns the day

 

 

 

 

 

Life as Great Blue Heron

 

Never mind their imperfect vriksasanas
    their swan and flamingo envy
        their two-toned pretense to cranedom

Stick-legged knock-kneed
    every orthopod’s wet dream
        they are too large for bendy reeds

too gangly to trade stories
    with snowy egrets
        at the great snowy egret bar

happy hour hits the marsh
    They stand jilted
        on listing docks and floats

locked into their S-neck
    bill bobble
        thrust and spear

damping the tourist trade
    Pale on the shaggy forewing
        muddy on the flight feathers

What the haberdasher to avian stars
    has wrought
        let no bird critic

tear asunder
    Midair shitter
        disdain spewed over bass boats

and picnickers who cannot help
    but gawk
        eyes to sky: mouth full of wonder

 

 

 

 

Life as Bullfrog

 

Let them flash their viscous headlamps
    or slow blink their insouciance
        Let them parade their acne and razor stubble

their blotchy waistcoats and sexy tympanums
    or bound blindly on the shores of Eagle Lake
        Let them piss burlap sacks

and spark etouffee dreams
    Let them rebut wart myths
        Let them flick zestfully at hawk moths

and jaw-strangle unwary larks
    and hoover-up wrigglers and slinksters
        Let the males Dizzy Gillespie their ardor

bellowing C major scales
    for aquatic lilies and hyacinths
        given over to dining needles

and swell currents
    Let them clasp
        and copulate in wavy chop

or preposterously petition their mates
    for personal space
        Let the females discharge

their floating egg mass
    or meditate on royal intervention
        Let them all suit up for muddy sleep

or join old timey touring bands
    jug o rum
        jug o adenoidal rum

 

 

 

 

 

About the author:

In addition to That hum to go by (Mammoth books), Jeff Schiff is the author of Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. His work has appeared in more than a hundred publications worldwide, including The Alembic, The Cincinnati Review, Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, Tulane Review, Tampa Review, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City (The Pinch), Indiana Review, Willow Springs, and The Southwest Review. He is currently serving as the interim dean of the school of graduate studies at Columbia College Chicago, where he has been on faculty since 1987.

 

In the artist’s words:

GJ Gillespie is a collage artist living in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island (north of Seattle). In addition to natural beauty, he is inspired by art history — especially mid century abstract expressionism. The “Northwest Mystics” who produced haunting images from this region 60 years ago are favorites. Winner of 20 awards, his art has appeared in 62 shows and 120 publications. When he is not making art, he runs his sketchbook company Leda Art Supply.