Thomaston
by L. Ward Abel
I want to cut through steeps
like a river. Cut through a low ridge that
blocks all sources, so
that the only way down to the Gulf
is straight through. And I
don't want to take eons, don't
want to pond before the heights and then
whittle away. The only answer for me
is hard water: explosive,
megatonic. I do realize, though, that once
the cut is made, my flow will settle
into a routine, and that after the fall-line,
I will just push sand aside,
ultimately becoming level, wide, swimming
in myself, becoming something
that
remembers.
© 2005 L. Ward Abel
L. Ward Abel is a life long poet, composer of music and spoken-word performer. He has written and recorded music for Abel & Rawls (now Abel, Rawls & Hayes), as Max Able (his former alter-ego) and with spoken-word pioneers Scapeweavel. His poems have been published widely in the U.S. and Europe, in print and on-line, including White Pelican Review, VLQ, erbacce (UK), Versal Two (Netherlands), Ink Pot, Texas Poetry Journal, Poems Niederngasse (Switzerland), Dead Drunk Dublin (Ireland), Poetry Super Highway, The Pedestal, Tertulia, many others. His chapbook, Peach Box and Verge, has been published by Little Poem Press. His new book of poems, Jonesing For Byzantium, will be published later this year at UK Authors Press (Bristol, UK). He lives in his native rural Georgia, cultivating his latifundia.
