Burlap, Trumpet & Night Owl Nos. 5 & 8

Terrell Jamal Terry

Terrell Jamal Terry is the author of the poetry collections Aroma Truce (Black Lawrence Press, 2017) and Eyeless Light Seeing (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming, 2019). In 2018, a limited-edition chapbook will be published by The Song Cave. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, West Branch, The Journal, Green Mountains Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, Crab Orchard Review, The Volta, Sugar House Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Diode, Washington Square Review, the anthology Bettering American Poetry 2015, and elsewhere.

Burlap, Trumpet & Night Owl No. 5

I tested trouble’s mettle 

            Snake-words ruptured 

I rubbed a verb until it yawned 

            Under the dark-burn 

Let them open the sky-ground

            I’m showing you (with) out 

My mirror-wished eyes

            To see trees not ending 

Limbs stuck to the moon

            Beaming, imbued in history 

Burlap, Trumpet & Night Owl No. 8

Now the step of murderers

            People couldn’t see listening 

They only saw with their eyes

            Ask if it’s a sun-stained street 

Rain fell like a friend low on joy

            I want to go back/moonless? 

Disappear again (aluminum pasture) 

            I can’t hide the lost stags 

Their dusty lives leaked 

            Smooth dirt doesn’t hurt much 

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Issue 7.1, Poetry