Monday 1 October 2018

George Eklund

                  G    E    O    R    G    E        E     K    L    U    N    D



George Eklund’s poems, translations and reviews have appeared in major journals throughout his career.  Currently Professor Emeritus at Morehead State University, Eklund’s work has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Crazyhorse, Epoch, The Iowa Review, The New Ohio Review, The North American Review, Poet Lore, Sycamore Review, and Willow Springs, among others.His books include The Island Blade (ABZ Press 2011); Each Breath I Cannot Hold (Wind Publications 2011) and Wanting to be an Element (Finishing Line Press 2012). Eklund is an Al Smith Fellow in Poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council and twice the winner of Morehead State University’s Distinguished Creative Productions Award.  His work has been nominated by  The Heartland Review for a 2018 Pushcart Prize




       Captiva


I have come back from Captiva
The torment did not kill me
Carlito passed out free beer
We had no war to talk about
Though we knew it existed in many forms.

I have survived another flight
Soon I will give away
All my books
And check into an institution
And begin to write words made of air
From another beginning
In my stained jacket
The one I keep leaving in strange places.

I have come back from Captiva
The boat captain was impressed with the storm
The mothers and daughters had seen much worse

The late swimmers murmured
Drunk at the pool chasing the flies away
One of them talked of a bad leg
That could barely exist
In its dream of blood

Water drips off the roofs of Captiva
Above the blurred shore of the gulf
I wish I could hold

Water drips into its own past, its own paint
Holding the logic of the storm.




           Standing on the Moon


He believed he was the only one
Standing on the moon
Though his loved ones once were there
He believed he was standing
On the moon
And in many places
Waiting for the next transport or treatment

Stomach to stomach
Tree limb to tree limb
He waited even as he traveled anew
From the moon to the stomachs
Of his loved ones

There were strange, small cakes
To pass around
Enough to feed the world
If only he could travel long enough

He believed he was the only one
Who had access to the moon cakes
As he traveled tree to tree
On planets without names
In a nameless cosmic history

He played his stringed instrument
While standing on the moon
And all the faces of his boyhood friends
Came winking into view and disappearing

All they could do was laugh
For no one was hungry
And all were loved

As he strummed and picked the dusty strings
And traveled in the eyes of strangers.





           The Request


In my short white beard
I am drawing close
To the evening fall of your lips.
I have stopped asking for mercy

Every request I make is without sense
Every request comes from a natural madness
An innocence that has never existed

The horrible spasms of Rome
Have found their own dark rooms
Without furniture

A full moon burns in the western clouds
Where were you at 1 a.m?

A strange unprintable blue
Seeps into the mind of earth
And its dream of the skin

With blood on the pillow
And in the trees.



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