gravel.

A Walk on the Saturday After Donald Trump’s Election

3/8/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Egrets fit&smooth as paper planes
caress the air-above-ground between
patches of trashed medians along US-1
splitting Lauderdale up-to-the-coast
 
isn’t the world failing—hasn’t it already
failed?—the thinned-out atmosphere
bloated with all-the-world’s-light
I’m anywhere else right now, I’m sure
 
in this state that swings-no-more
the chain-leashed pitbulls, heavied
in the heat, heave pendulously
there is garbage for all-of-us to eat--
 
cigarette butts and smashed
Steel Reserves silver sidewalks
Styrofoam dregs of consumption
are islands built to live ten-thousand years--
 
nothing lasts, nothing lasts—my bones
are inside-outting their buttery marrow
the Intracoastal is drowning yachts
it was delusion to think we wouldn’t
 
consume our fragile-little-selves
 


​
Picture
Brendan Walsh has fallen in love with South Korea, Laos, and all of New England; he currently lives in South Florida to sate his palm tree needs. He has been published in Mudfish, Connecticut Review, LONTAR, Wisconsin Review, Lines+Stars, and other journals. His second collection, Go, was published by Aldrich Press in 2016. His work has been awarded the Anna Sonder Prize of the Academy of American Poets, the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize, and a Freedman Prize for poetry in performance. More from Brendan can be found here. 

1 Comment
Michael O'Connell
3/11/2017 05:45:04 am

Bro, you're killing it! This poem tears at my heart. How could we have been so delusional?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About

    Gravel is a literary journal edited by students of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

    Cover image by T.M. Lankford
Photos used under Creative Commons from Bambi Corro, onnola, SebastianBartoschek, Hernan Piñera, comedy_nose, ComputerHotline, michaelmueller410, Alexandre Dulaunoy, Theme Park Tourist, quinet, roseannadana: Back on my home turf, grits2go, Arian Zwegers, quinn.anya, MikeSpeaks, Kim Gunnarsson, p.langerz