Two Poems
Terry Persun


 
Ore Mill
 
Refined and formed,
flattened for use,
copper sheets rolled
into squares. Art
from labor, labor
from science,
scratched, pushed,
colored and covered.
Using a thing
is like following
a dried streambed,
nails of the mind
protrude, hold firm
an ore mill at the foot
of an idea, the edge
of a lie.



The Ekphrastic Poem
 
I want to gather the soft
fluff of chicks, the pinch
of crab, the sting of scorpion
into the folds of my chest,
my stomach, loins, and feet,
feel it quick like the skin
of a lover—no time to think.
 
All my senses must hold
the colors, brush strokes, emotion
in bare hands, letting slip
the noise of paint, screaming
its message in unintelligible ways.
 
Then drag the horror home,
the raw fuel, hurried words,
the beauty back to a place
where my own sacrifices
have bled, my own childhood
dashed against rocks, love-loss,
pitch-black, brutally-honest,
where it can open to pleasure
one rewrite at a time, a blossoming
unrecognizably brilliant and lovely.

About the Author:  Terry Persun has been writing and publishing since the early 1970s. His poems and stories have appeared in many small and university magazines including Wisconsin Review, Kansas Quarterly, Riverrun, Rattle, Hiram Poetry Review, Drop Forge, Bluestem, NEBO, Eclipse, Bacopa, and many others. His poems have appeared in six, single author chapbooks and four full-length collections. Terry speaks at writers conferences and universities across the country.  Visit Terry's website here. 

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