Torch No. 1
beneath
the pigeon stone shadow
of Wenceslaus Square,
kindling
more flame than the
firefly
pinned
to the felt of Natural History,
a boy
fell
a human
torch
by the side
of the road
and they would not treat the body –
how easily doctors
follow orders.
Smell the cooked flesh,
how it lingers,
skin,
like cinders
on the air,
sheets,
ashy with body marks–
See how simply
the cells
blister apart,
thin tissue dissolving,
pink ravines carved
into hardened black.
Lick the dried crust of gasoline
clean
from your ears
and hear the
burning.
The Painter on the Charles Bridge
We would think he was a sweat stain upon the rim
stones that bridge across Karlov Most, his leathered
skin as red as the eyes of pigeons that burrow
among the bread crumbs on his cobbled mattress.
He'd sit shirtless, pressing his backbone against
the cool granite, and pushing a pair of plastic horns
back into his greased curls, he'd hiss at reflections
passing across the window glass of jewelry shops.
We would think his mind had rusted and stalled.
But, mistaking his eyes for garnets behind the panes,
he would see himself as Kolar or Picasso, inking newspaper
canvas with his finger prints, self-portraits of Satan.
And gathering his demons up for sale, he would lick
at our ankles, spit at our sins until the sunlight turned to fire
above Hradcany. And when his eyes went black at night,
the rock beneath him crumbling, he knew to pack away his horns.
We would not know which stair he took to exile himself,
if he tossed his many faces into the falls, baptized by the Vltava,
or if he prostrated all night beneath the bronze crucifix,
or kissed the stone toes of King Charles at the bridge's end.
Even now, as we walk along the pebbled palms of the broken
brick-work, leading us toward the gates of Mala Strana,
we think it odd how the pigeons gather with eyes of rubies,
pecking at a shadow left upon the stone.
Below the Tatra Mountains
Before the August sun
and white hay are rolled
along the flats of green wilder,
the thorn grass is still high
enough for me to get down
deep into it.
I would want to be a locust,
to taste the green wings
of the daffodils, soft as the wool
on herds that feed along the brook,
its blue running through the blades
I lie on.
I would want to brush my legs
against their stems to hear
what melody the green can play
for the bronzed wheat and sun
flowers boughing up their necks
to the threshed sky.
And when the clouds collide,
romancing each other until the rain
bathes the mountains, I would raise
my wings to smell the pine green
of the forest where the doe
hides among the aspen.
And if I could climb
to the crest of a corn stalk,
I would want to see the change
of hues on the patched earth,
a world in its wealth
of green.
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
March, 2010
Poetry
Tera Vale Ragan
Tera Vale Ragan studied at USC's Creative Writing Program where she received the Virginia Middleton Poetry Award and at San Francisco State where she is the Poetry Editor of 14 Hills and winner of the Mark Linenthal Award. Poetry publications include Rattle, Transfer, Eclipse, etc. She lives each summer in Prague and studies at Charles University.