Gerald Locklin’s books so far in 2013 include, along with Deep Meanings (Presa Press), a novella trilogy from Spout Hill Press: The Case of the Missing Blue Volkswagon, Come Back, Bear, and Last Tango in Long Beach (available individually from amazon.com), a reprint of Gerald Locklin: New and Selected Poems(2008) from Silver Birch Press, and a single-story e-book The Sun Also Rises in the Desert from Mendicant Bookworks (available on Smashwords). These three poems originally appeared in Deep Meanings: New and Selected Poems(Presa Press); they are reprinted with permission. You may learn more about the poet and contact him through his website and on Facebook.
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Winslow Homer: Gloucester Sunset, 1880
I have always been
A strong boy at the oars.
I skim still waters where
The bass hides in the bulrush marshes
Or I ramp the waves in challenge of
The grand banks where my fate awaits me.
I propel myself among the narcissistic sails
Which have been unsinewed by the wind’s
Solicitations. As night comes on,
The only splash that’s seen is mine.
I bow my back to feel my dorsals pull
And show you, resting in the stern,
That I’m the mate to pilot you
Past shoals that punctuate horizoned years
When I will be the steady context of
The girlhood in your womanhood.
From infra-red to ultraviolet,
I will fill my lungs with salted oxygen
For the winning and the keeping of you.