Spring 2019, Volume 26

Poetry by Heidi Lynn Staples

Ground

February 26, 2019

Alpha, our darkest
Body becoming in each
Container that is the
Day; Alpha, that which is first, before the
Egg, first before the eerily silent
Full-bodied and bold flame bursts into flame; what
Ground what tumbling
Heavens turn
Intense and smoky, immensely popular,
Joyous; our darkest
Knowing, our adored
Light-bodied darkest
Master, yours is the overstory,
None is the
Omega opening, the reaching the 
Peak, the
Quiet low sourcing; our nothing not without
Rewards our what is hourly is
Stars inside; ground
Tumbling, the tumbling them,
Use me--use within this
Very body and flavor, this
Wt.,  this become you this second, your
Xo; mark this spot with the nothing that is within
You, light-bodied darkest sound,
Zero is the ground, visit us…

Trail

February 21, 2014

Zeal—is the
Yielding with
X’d out and
Wt.less and
Useless and
Trespassing,
Spooling is the sky soundless as
Reality in which we un-,
Quietly unbecoming, that stranger
Place, Clif’s edge, that
Other than my/your/their face, is is that
Now without a name, the
Moment a pulsing
Lived hour our Clif, the
Keepsake of god, every
Joy that is the
Isn’t is the final Clif we leap into the
Hunger,
Garbage, all that writhes there, we are the
Face, always a Clif; The best of everything is
Each of us is energy’s energy, the
Day is to
Clif as love is to all
Being aloft in the ravenous
And 

Trail

August 6, 2015

What cold weather hither is wither that distributed age
spots on your hands, beloved, while we were talking, what shade  
reached from within, I had hardly seen how we bear our
two become one along the Clif built on the spirit of adventure--
Whose tiny tracks these who seek out new routes?
We are host to what drives us, what source
inspiring you to push yourself and discover new places—
bit by bit blotted out by the new journey
on energy’s way to Meet the Moment.

Yet how like company
is the moment’s meeting
like family the sustained energy
is the moment’s meeting and 100% recycled—
Love, let us stoke the moment’s imagination, inspiring
the Clif distributed within us, though two become one
undone, let us know we created 20 Adventure Challenges,
that whatever the day brings, we will fall
into the places where we love to play.

Trail

July 3, 2015

At different beaches, on different
sea salt, a child rides a boogie board
until each mother becomes concerned—
the natural way to reduce early death by drowning.

And so kind waves to kind,
and kind waves back or is it drowning?
Life gets saturated fast as a parent
lover neighbor friend—

all your sugars float along finely,
in a day made from all natural ingredients
you can see and pronounce! Until you learn
unmoored @ www.factsRmixed, may contain  

fragments; love with every fiber resounding:
extract! I get lucky and can keep you.   

Trail

February 19, 2015

Two shepherds are sitting at breakfast.
One shepherd is eight years old and more
than an hour and a half late for school;

the other shepherd is some percent older
and is certified nuts for paying the tuition
that allows for wandering along the routine

by which these two stray to meet the moment.
The shepherds do not always agree
about the nutrition facts of their trail

that passes above the Clif over which
family alliance is sure to be led
by the engineered daily values.  

Must our time together company get torn
apart like some wrapper, distributed
by foundation based on “tear here?”

How soon before delicious us becomes no
longer total insoluble source, becomes
allergen statement, high in unsweetened?

One shepherd is collecting state coins;
the other shepherd is collecting states
of sustained energy made with contains joy.

If each day is best by an adventure, how
many shepherds does it take to say, screw it,
let’s sleep under the stars?

 

 

 

BIO: Heidi Lynn Staples teaches in the MFA program at the University of Alabama. She is the author of five collections of poems.  Her most recent book, Comedown, is a collection of poems created using work banks drawn from trash migrating through her office. Poems from the manuscript have been published in Berkeley Poetry Review, Ecotone, Jubilat, Verdad, and elsewhere.