Tangled in One Person
(Listen to the poem, read by the author)
I was back in your long black hair last night,
remembering the soft weave in a missile world.
I dreamed you hot; two horses in a field of heather.
Sun, sky-blue need, and we on all fours.
Love is like agriculture; it feeds the nation.
It is wrong dreaming of love when the world is at war.
But the lack of you is the lack of attention; hunger,
and death waits its turn behind you and me.
The Need for Dimension
(Listen to the poem, read by the author)
Haircut, car wash, the universe grows and
contracts. Humans are born small, grow larger,
then contract. Small, medium, big, zero.
Short and long, short and long, such is being.
I am growing shorter. Even my pants
are an inch too long. Given the decades
I hope I still have, I will become flat.
What pants fit a plate? What shirt a page?
Extend then back to the start. I’d like to
stay on alert, to remain visible,
to periscope the sights, to know something,
anything, what flies past my eyes, my ears,
zoom. There went God. Zoom. There went galaxies.
Zoom. There went love. I need height for happy.
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About the Author
David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, TN. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than two hundred. He lives in Nashville, TN, where he is director of the Musicians Reunion, an annual blues music festival now in its 37th year. He currently teaches at Tennessee State University.