A sickle-sliver of moon
hangs as if fixed still
before a star-flecked curtain
of murky midnight blue;
the earth takes in a breath,
its exhalation inspiring
crepe myrtle branches to stretch themselves
and whisper, “Namaste.”
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Skyscrapers glowing green and gold
against steel-blue banks of cloud,
the city rises from cracked asphalt streets,
shining like some starry urban Oz,
its resplendent oil-boom towers
still exciting heightened hopes
strings of streetlights drawing many eyes
towards its emerald heart.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
The great cat’s humongous feet
support a massive chest, the creature’s
strength mainly in its legs and flanks,
the head relatively small, the balancing
tail cable-thin, the body marked
with molecular diagrams
of some primitive lifeforce,
mouth open and teeth bared,
but as if to scream instead of bite,
eyes pleading, not daring
or rather, daring a different response
to dangerous beauty.
*Panther by Rudy Pozzotti
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
stands lined out against a slender tree,
tail flagging high, nose lifted to test
the nighttime air, bright eyes opening
onto a dark, sad wisdom.
Stealth, cunning, death, and the Devil,
says the plaque beside the print,
but the fox has nothing to hide,
no fear of circumstances beyond the grave.
Its cleverness shows a cleaner cunning
than the conniving human kind,
and we, not she, must own
the deviltries of this world.
*Fox by Rudy Pozzotti
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
When it’s 5 a.m. but you’re wide awake
on a summer day when there’s no need
for early rising, no hurry to get moving,
what can you do really but sit on the porch
in your underwear, drinking black coffee in the dark,
watching cats prowl the yards and mourning
the loss of stars as the sky begins to brighten
slightly and a gentle wind breaks the stillness,
stirring the uppermost branch of the hackberries,
ruffling the feathers of the early birds
anticipating the dawn in that long, lonely
moment just before it that brings to mind
departed lovers and forgotten dreams;
but the birds sing reassuringly
as the first light reveals the first blossoms
on a late-blooming crepe myrtle,
and the coffee is good and strong.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
A cricket chorus
sings under an egg-shaped moon
on a dead-still night
unwinded by summer heat,
only insect breath stirring.
Cooyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico
The smell of lavender soap
rises to greet to morning air
as moppers splash suds
from hundreds of wash buckets
onto rollercoaster sidewalks
in front of as many shops,
some pausing a momentito
to let a pedestrian by
or returning a passing “Buenos,”
others too intent on their task
of scrubbing clean the already
clean stones worn smooth
by a century of footsteps
and scrubbing, wielding
their mops with reverence,
their work more ritual
than mere quotidian chore.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
After the dawn’s early light,
but before the fireworks start,
the flags drape gracefully,
ruffled, but not unfurled,
by the soft, warm breeze
in a morning moment of peace,
the persistent joy of birdsong
from the neighboring treetops
drowning out the violent murmur
of the television news oozing out
from inside around the badly
hung storm door, as I sit
on the porch with my cats,
like humans, killing machines
also capable of affection,
pondering the privileges
of living in a great country
whose greatest weakness
might be its obsession
with its own greatness,
its constant need to control,
to exemplify, its difficulty
sometimes in recognizing
its own problems, and
undeniably it has erred—
we can all name the times
and places—and yet it
has received and nourished,
saved and welcomed,
drawn strength even
from those it has denigrated,
and in all but the darkest times
allowed the dissenters to speak.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Death dropped by this afternoon,
having taken the form of a grinning skeletal burro
that I saw at the Mexican market,
wrapped in a colorful blanket,
sociable as always–
helping himself to tequila
and offering me a glass as if he were the host.
When I called him on it,
good-naturedly, as amigos do,
He said, “Don’t worry, ‘Manito.
You can do the same at my place
when you come
to stay.”
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 