Two Poems By Mark Blaeuer

Theatre of Shade

A tall thin pine is swaying in the breeze.
That tall shortleaf is swaying in the breeze.
It yearns, yearns for a gap in canopies
beyond the shade, below hot-bristled sun.

Shaded below an energetic sun,
life reaches up for light, a skeleton
except for those few branches at the crown.
And minus verdant needles in the crown?

Just ninety-eight board-feet to sell in town,
the larder where loud pileateds eat
fat insects (under loosening bark all eat),
taproot disintegrated, obsolete.

So, covet Pinus echinata’s role—
no part is offered to a wayward soul.

Jingle

Subsisting on Goliath’s minimum
unstrung the melody on Dave’s guitar.
He diligently strums out bland PR
for giants, lauding them for each dropped crumb.

Mark Blaeuer’s poems and translations have appeared in dozens of journals, including Blue Unicorn, Ezra, Measure, The Orchards, and The Raintown Review. A collection, Fragments of a Nocturne, is available from Kelsay Books. He lives near Hot Springs, Arkansas.