This is a selection of unpublished poems sent to (and rejected by) a variety of prestigious literary journals.
All poems © J Hardy Carroll
you want it this way
you want it his way
your poor heart… you say it’s poor, now
ripped from your hand
where you held it aloft, exposed
waiting for almost anyone
to pluck it and drop it into a bushel
carry it… where? If only a question
of blood-lust, of settling old scores
where is your sugar-pie now?
is she sitting at the table
heart pie carved with apple slice cleanness
equal parts of different size and shape
would you feel too much better, then
parted asunder by feral dogs crouching beneath the table
they used to live
in safety
unseen in the crawl-space
heart pie, full of gristle
and old, worn bone
pulled reluctant into bed after bed
barely warmed by your sweet corn smell
set to linger in the sheets, in bottles
head for the door
run while there’s time
Buster Keaton, Strapped to a Train
It was an old movie I saw late
sitting in my grandmother’s old chair
silent Buster Keaton with sad huge eyes
wan on the cattle-catcher of a steam engine
plowing toward the camera, down the tracks
crossed with rail ties, a sure and deadly hazard
and all he can do is reach down to flip each tie to the side
just as the train is about to hit it, derail everything
his face slack as he reaches to grab a pile of ties
at the last possible moment, and there are more and more,
the ties piled higher and higher in stacks of two and three
and I now sitting on the edge of the soft cushion forgetting
it is only a movie, caught up in the peril of what can come next
Bum
that man’s face is gray and he gloves
his rain-pattered beggar’s slice
of cardboard while rummaging his pockets
for Top, so hard to roll
in what is now a downpour
he is forced to smoke just the same
as he is forced
to everything
In And Out of Airplanes
The axles smoke uphill,
buckets of black slush sluiced judiciously
when the road turns steep
lest the animals balk
pulling harder against the traces
stop all together, strand the traveler
red faced and raging. The staved
bucket instead swings from a pintle
grease black, wrought and hammered iron
I touch the side of the jet
hunch into its narrow belly
nodding hello, eye the rows
breathe the cycled air stale.
Some magazine said three
out of four Americans believe
they will find their soul-mate
next to them on an airplane.
Maybe true if their souls lie
in wait, eager for the chance to jump,
hot grease on the griddle, spatters
pooling solid as they cool
Class of 17
So few of them left, now
organizers lumped five years
of classes together,
the invitations returned unopened
from nursing homes and other
last known addresses
until there was a final count:
fewer than twenty who could bear
both travel and duration,
who could understand what
it was all about, or a semblance.
They came on canes and walkers
and of course wheelchairs.
In front of what they called the New Gym (built
in 1939) the table was bunted
and bannered WELCOME SENIORS 1915-19,
covered with old-fashioned campaign buttons
a saucer-sized black and white photo of each
taken that long-ago summer between junior and senior years
a sepia trap of youth absent of tragedy, absent of everything
but endless hope
From now on
I am a bad man,
each human heart no more
than a grain of sand
or a shirt hanging on a clothesline
that I on my motorcycle never see
So I will be a bad man from now on
and all your crying won’t even make me
sneer. I won’t notice
the bruises on your back, won’t care
if it’s cold, won’t look
at a clock or a calendar
ever again