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.

_______________________________________________