Sample Poems by W. Luther Jett

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The Wagons

By the museum-wall
below the Cathedral
the ancient way - pitted
cobbles - rubble
makes for steep going.

A face in chalk - her eyes
follow you everywhere.

When even tour guides
proselytize, it's never long
before they start burning
books. Cover your eyes.

Long ago, wooden wagons
creaked up from the umber
river. The drovers called:
Bring out your dead!

Gargoyles high above
blackened by fires
which blazed and did not
consume - though stainglass
windows melted in their frames.

Her pearl earring gleams -
From a distance, alarms.

---

A War Story

Here is the book
with torn pages.
Only half remains
to be deciphered.

And here is the house
with burnt rooms,
and a few fading photos
scattered across the floor.

And here, here - Forgive me
but these are my bones.
This is the face I was using.
Wrap them all tenderly.

Sing of me as you sleep.

---

Autopsy

In a land the snow has forgotten
I am remembering that day -

A sky like this, immaculate blue,
and the planes roaring us to silence.

Now a corner-radio plays a song no-one
should bear. Evening drags on.

I dare not count the minutes, dare not
count the names shadowing the wall.

On the sidewalk yesterday -
a lone shoe, a chalk cipher.

The last letter you wrote me
you swallowed whole.

Afterward, when the doctors opened
your stomach -your flesh charred

Beyond knowing- they found
your words, all that remained of you.

How will I answer
the question you left me?

---

The Hero

You wrote my name in stone,
graved it in brass, called me
hero because
that day fire
dropt from sky
to brand our city, I was
there and did
only what wanted doing.
No more.

And all your flags and flowers -
I never lived to see. Your songs,
those speeches,
the medals -
That morning I wasn't looking
for any of that.
That day
I only wanted
to get through it.

I didn't.
And I would give anything
not
to be
your hero.