THREE POEMS
by Tom Holmes
SIX-FEET UNDER: THE DAY OF MARCH 20TH, 1345
On this afternoon occurs the conjunction of Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter, which causes the
Bubonic Plague
A cat leaps from one roof
over the street, where people
examine a dead body,
to another roof and defecates.
A man with exposed
skinny legs is the second
to be infected. Then the woman
in a wedding dress behind him.
In a second-floor window,
an overlooking child closes
and locks window shutters.
This act won’t exempt his suffering.
One family places a rose
in the window for good omen.
They soon will burble blood
under a slash of moonlight.
All day the sun appeared
to be reflecting time,
and the fleas, jumping
from the dead, were not.
The man in the bright, blue
suit and white wig is immune,
and the colony of rats who feed
fleas scurry to a neighboring town.
The next noon, those rats present.
March 20th repeats. For a thousand days,
people learn to dig graves
two-and-a-half arms deep.
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AN ENGLISH TOWN DURING THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY BUBONIC PLAGUE
The yellow sky, with smoke-
breathing dragons descending
like terrorist airplanes on the town’s
navel, is overcast with red clouds.
If this was Revelations,
the four horsemen would gallop
across, but it is not
the end of days.
It’s worse. People survive.
They pray for curses or conjure
stories of blame. One woman
pushes her babyless baby carriage,
a man runs from a giant rat
to the town doctor and his vials
of faith. On the edge
of town, a pink house
with purple roof. In the middle,
a house the colors of the sky.
For months, the dragons
and rats circle townsfolk.
Prayers and stories revise.
Each day, bloodier skies,
people rot, houses colors
remain, unchanged.
A little boy by the canal
releases a leather balloon.
In it is a note to God.
There’ll be no reply.
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EXPLAINING AQUA-BLUE TO A CHILD
The color of a clean body
of water with hints of green
life swimming below
and praying to the surface
air which they may breathe
as they cross the other side.
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For over twenty years, Tom Holmes has been the editor and curator of Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. Holmes is also the author of five full-length collections of poetry, including The Book of Incurable Dreams (forthcoming from Xavier Review Press) and The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award for 2013, as well as four chapbooks. He teaches at Nashville State Community College (Clarksville). His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break: thelinebreak.wordpress.com/. Follow him on Twitter: @TheLineBreak
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