Sample Poems by Cara Chamberlain

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Mary, Beatrice, Lucia-Grant Us Your Light


The city embellishes
A chase of silver
Or realistically a pus of clouds

Where the moon charades
As blemish or scar
Above the grocery of insomniacs

The dark respiration working
Nighthawks culling tides and waves
Of a winged blight over the big box store

Secret folds mining clamping
Mushrooms pulsing up inside the lawns
White forests releasing spores

Fanged worms in matted compost
Clever slime molds retreating
Dead- man's fingers shriveling

With dawn a blessed time
Soon perhaps grown flat
Despite the promised sugars

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Gates of Hell


Make them cement
or granite

limestone or marble
no mildew

no mold, fossil alone
ammonite and crinoid

wind of raw elements
of neutron coronas

no protist, no plant
no saprophyte or epiphyte

what they did, what imagined
animal artistry and genius

unclocked, discalendared
in eternal erection, no coiling

or curling, tendrilling, crinkling
no petiole, pollen or ovum

just rock
resistant priapic

God-stone judgment
marble cotton-eye

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Limbo


Here reason's light
Contours the rows

Around sloughs and hills,
Shines against erosion,

Works scientifically
With phosphorous and nitrogen

While the bearded masters-
Millet, wheat, rice, and corn-

Nod like sages who will give up
One or two for sacrifice

And insinuate the rest
Into every brain and pocket.

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Passion Wind


Pollen bristles spines and spikes
Whirls as satellites

Powders oceans
Slips window screens

Tremulously reads the book of sex
Trails fluttering threads that catch

By chance or skip away
What is lost doesn't die