by Carl Scharwath
At the Lake
You slide a cigarette
out of your packet, smooth
as a gliding heron and
tell me:
I don’t know how hard your life
has been. You don’t know
the half of it.
I ponder over this,
beneath the jostling honks,
the squawks of waterfowl,
and peer out:
moving water, ripples:
countless, an unceasing bloodbath.
The butterfly-light zephyr
strokes
our faces:
but we’ve survived, but we’ve survived it
all.
On the distant lake edge
ducklings scurry,
a fuzz-swirl of butter yellow, walnut,
follow their mother
across an emerald swell.
If we run fast enough at them,
if we scream just loud enough,
hear their gush of shrill whistles,
would we shock their limbic
systems, stop
their grape-sized hearts?
Or, would they jump,
panic-beaten,
into that violence,
and, somehow,
still
learn to swim?
David Hanlon is a welsh poet living in Cardiff. He is a Best of the Net nominee. You can find his work online in over 40 magazines, including Rust & Moth, Icefloe Press & Mineral Lit Mag. His first chapbook Spectrum of Flight is available at Animal Heart Press.
Carl Scharwath has appeared globally with 170+ journals selecting his poetry, short stories, interviews, essays, plays or art. Three poetry books Journey To Become Forgotten (Kind of a Hurricane Press), Abandoned (ScarsTv)and Lake County Poets Anthology have been published. His first photography book was published by Praxis. His photography was also selected by Mount Dora Center For The Arts gallery and their exhibition “Be A Part Of It.” Carl is the art editor for both Minute Magazine (USA,) and A Too Powerful Word (Serbia). He is also a competitive runner and a 2nd degree black- belt in Taekwondo.