Monday, January 11, 2016

New Poetry by Tim Staley










Today They Open the Rio Grande   
                               - for Jon

Today they open the river
dusty arteries charge
as the old farmer in coveralls
races to the red wheel
to twist his own fields
full of muddy water.

Draped in his barn
under a heavy brown canvas
is a coffin lined with velvet
plump as ripe mulberries
but Jon, that’s not for you.
The moon like a tumor
grown to be sliced away.

The current says, I'll let you be,
to the cobweb in the reeds.
Each is impressed
with the other's impermanence.

Hold today’s Rio in your brain
rolling high in the grassy banks
on the gurney when they roll you in
like the Sea of Tranquility
holds that last gist of light

in its darkest hour. 


- Tim Staley 2016


Tim Staley was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1975. He completed a Poetry MFA from New Mexico State University in 2004. His first full-length volume of poetry is forthcoming from Pski’s Porch Publishing. His chapbooks are available for purchase at the Grandma Moses Press online store. Journal publications include Border Senses, Cacti Fur, Canary, Chiron Review, Circumference, Coe Review, Malpais Review, Magnapoets, RHINO: The Poetry Forum, and Sin Fronteras. His hobbies include thinking, taquitos, and waiting. Actually, just taquitos.  He lives with his wife and daughter in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

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