Au Fond du Minervois | Charles Tarlton | Poetry
O direction and pomposity!
Near the stony city of Minerve
where ripe figs fall to the sidewalk
for anyone to gather and eat
and the mysteries of life and death
were all erased like chalk marks
from a blackboard, by consecutive
rifle shots that killed exactly two birds
(somehow that second bird had failed
to fly away)
and the voice of the old neighbor
scolded, spittle in the corners
of her mouth. “They’ll never
get the chance to sing now, you horrid
little boys.”
Photo by Ian Kirkland on Unsplash
Bio:
Charles Tarlton is a poet living in Old Saybrook, Connecticut with his wife, Ann Knickerbocker, an abstract painter, and their two standard poodles, Nikki and Jesse. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California, at Los Angeles, and has taught at Berkeley, the University of Victoria, the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, the University at Albany, New York, and the University of Malta. His poems and flash fictions have appeared in 84 journals, including Ekphrastic Review, Rattle, Blackbox Manifold (UK), Ilanot Review (Israel), London Grip (UK), The Journal (UK), Innisfree Poetry Journal,(Eire), Thick Jam, Spinoza Blue, Bookends. In addition, he has published seven print collections of his poetry and ekphrasis.
