Storm Over Houston
A shadow props up the gutted barn
where we spent the night.
To be keen all the time—not to swerve.
Ten minutes out of every hour
is enough most days.
A man with boulders in his soul,
a dock trying to hold onto
it’s string of boat horses,
a bone-drenched woman
with praise for a God
who is stealthy as a barn cat.
Out on the highway
no sound now,
as if someone
had picked them all up
from a skiff with a pruning hook
and put them in a sack.
Craig Brandis lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and studies poetry at the Attic in Portland with David Beispeil and Ed Skoog. In addition to publishing in online and print journals, he is a student of book arts and publishes limited edition chapbooks of his poems using letterpress and handmade paper. His work has been published in New Verse News, Three Line Poetry, the Ekphrastic Review, Dovetails Literary Journal, and elsewhere. He can be reached at craigbrandis [at] gmail [dot] com.
Clementine Unbound 