Tulips–
yellow, rain-wet,
budding seductively,
but still holding their petals close–
just wait!
Copyright 2021
T. Allen Culpepperpoetry
Monthly Archives: March 2021
When the Spirits Are Not at Rest
In pandemic times, a solitary I casts the protective circle, banishing friend as well as foe.
I call to the east for peace, but wars continually rage;
the spirits of air circle like restless buzzards.
I call to the south for peace, but racist violence resurges;
the spirits of fire burn hotter and higher.
I call to the west for peace, but the fault lines widen and deepen;
the spirits of water ride a troubled tide.
I call to the north for peace, but even there volcanoes erupt and glaciers melt;
the spirits of earth, threatened, grow defensive.
Have the spirits below been broken and buried?
Do the spirits above, displeased, turn their heads away?
The spirits within skitter wildly about,
Like bipolar monkeys learning to skate.
But which is cause and which effect, which turning the root of woe?
Copyright 2021
T. Allen Culpepper
Reflection
It is a video camera rather than a mirror
he looks into, this 21st-century Narcissus,
as smooth and white as a marble of himself,
warmer to the touch, no doubt, but with a jaded
coolness in his gaze that reveals an unnatural,
for-profit detachment no youth in ancient Greece
could fathom.
And this Gen-Z model, wherever he’s from,
who has a name of his own, though almost certainly
not the one included in the description below him,
reclines not in some wooded glen, but an artfully
made-up bed, not basking in sunlight, but blasted
with heat from racks of studio lights aimed
at him.
But game for another take, he smiles blondly,
hardens up again and gets back to the work he’s
playing at, his beauty undeniable, whether appreciated
for its aesthetics or merely its utility. How he sees himself
remains a mystery, but three thousand viewers and counting
have this way seen, unable to unsee, this youth they don’t know
from Adam.
Copyright 2021
T. Allen Culpepper
Hyacinths
Airy purple gherkins
of sighing starry petals
sprung from the blood
of a fallen prince
loved as so many
by fickle Zeus,
they too bloom early
and don’t last long.
Copyright 2021
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 