CCD Presents: Poetry by Peter Venable

Winston-Salem Writers||Peter Venable

The Hour Before

At Blackwater Baptist cemetery,

behind the loose-shingled steeple

a massive cedar shades                                

lichen-capped tombstones

bent askew by centuries

of blistering heat and pitiless ice

as I wait beneath, bough-shaded,

 

for the service under a blue tent

some seventy feet away where her body

rests in its wooden cocoon.

 

Dragonflies surf heatwaves

as sweat soaks my collar and tie.

 

Strange

how spacetime curves into that

black hole singularity

under the coffin,

 

and how the vision of her smiling face—

beatific—beams through the tears to come.

 

 

5 a.m.

From the deck

I sense a million tiny eyes probe mine

behind silhouettes of trees and shrubs.

 

The dank air whirls with spirals of light

and a crescent moon blushes

under dawn’s pink ruffles.

 

 

Spooning

Spooning submerged granola

under strawberry yogurt

in a wine glass is like—nothing! 

Any simile profanes.

 

Spooning granola

under strawberry yogurt

is pure metaphor—transporting me,

spoonful after spoonful

 

as I shut my eyelids

 

munching, slurping, tasting, swallowing

 

until I scrape up the last crunch

 

and lick

 

the last

 

pink

 

drop.

 

Peter Venable has written both free and metric verse for over fifty years. He has been published in Prairie Messenger, Torrid Literature Journal, Third Wednesday, Windhover – A Journal of Christian Literature, Flying South 2016, and others. He is a member of the Winston Salem Writers. Visit him at petervenable.com

Founded in 2005, Winston-Salem Writers is a group of writers who write fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry, and who care about the art and craft of writing. They offer programs, workshops, critique groups, open mic nights, contests and writers’ nights out for both beginning writers and published authors. For more information, click HERE.