Alone

by Barry North

In a gray dawn,
standing
on the edge of the gulf,
as upon the edge of time,
watching the rain beat,
in elemental sensuality,
upon the immense breast of the open sea,
life,
as a spontaneous eruption,
without the touch of God,
seems almost conceivable,
with implications more frightening
than anything in The Bible.
Man, rooted not in the heavens,
but in spongy river bottoms,
eventually rising to the trees,
before dropping,
club in hand,
to terrorize the open plains,
and multiplying into animals,
roaming city streets,
punching the eyes out of each of their victims,
like hoodlums smashing windows in a vacant house.

Barry North is a 68-year-old retired refrigeration mechanic born and raised in New Orleans. Since his retirement, he has won the 2009 Long Story Contest International, the 2010 A.E. Coppard Prize for Fiction and Honorable Mention in the 2011 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Slipstream, The Hawaii Pacific Review, The Louisiana Review, The Dos Passos Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The San Diego Reader and others. This poem comes from “Terminally Human,” North’s first chapbook available for purchase here.