Seriously Dangerous
 
The evening begins with kudzu—
summer memories submerged
in a deep southern swamp—
where spirited black boys, old dryers
bob beside alligators.  Late in hot night,
flashes of yesterday surface in pain
like the prick of a thorn, the mock
of a crown that continues its burn.
 
Low whispers, deep shadows remain
where trials by fire have left actual trails
after a tromp in slime & muck,
with tell-tale footprints from society’s
work boots.  Seriously dangerous,
the cross without a savior—
deniable today, but for masks, hoods—
cannot burn away filth & dross,
 
nor wash us clean, ’til truth bleeds.
 
first published in Poetry Friends
 
**
 
Where Light Is Going
                                                                                               
How I love that which floats on the wind—
scent of honeysuckle, autumn leaves, October,
a sudden rain.  The babbling of a brook. 
A trail of black smoke follows the curve
of a mountain. The lone train-whistle that rides
on smoky air. A waving engineer. Birds that
chirp, crickets that drone.  Sparks from
a campfire.  Hot dogs on sharpened sticks.
The top of a hill where I climbed from the valley.
The valley where I waded in a small stream,
where fields of cows chomped tall, red clover.
Hymns from a church.  Bells that always ring
at dusk.   The time of year when night comes early.
The setting sun behind ever-green trees,
a forlorn sky becoming heavy blue.  The horizon
as it turns pink and mauve, then purple.
 
It would be easier to speak as others believe,
not to feel the ocean’s intentions nor to sense
the pull of the moon. Grace abounds in ocean,
in flotsam, in rich sea foam, floats in earth’s
swirling dust, though only in teaspoonfuls.
The cold wind scatters leftover leaves,
while Daddy’s silhouette plays
a mean harmonica.  Timid at first, I dance—
which is only to say, that which I love
often comes from memories.  So that
watching a sunset  becomes the home
to which I must return—something alive
and pulsating that holds me.  So that when
music quickens, peaks in crescendo, sunbeams
rush through an open door onto a staircase.
Neither airplanes nor birds can fly through
the rainbow, capture light from the flash
of a desperate firefly or candles I have lit
for their natural warmth.  Who can fly
to where light is going, looking backward
at childhood’s black tree-branches?
 
first published in Hobble Creek Review
 
**
 
 
Spin, Spin, Spin
 
The world’s gone where
in a handheld basket?
 
People with crosses have
various purposes.
We know most are dangerous,
except for the chosen few
God actually likes.
 
I think not.  But what do I know?
I’m just an old soul
wearing nerdy glasses.
 
Aren’t most of us rather
forgettable in the long run?
And maybe even if the run is
not-so-long.
 
The earth spins, yes?
 
Spin, spin, spin,
and we have lost the faith of the daisies.
Sweet hickory smoke floats like violets—
or maybe violence—on the wind.
 
first published in Blue Fifth Review
 
**
 
© Helen Losse

Bio:
 
Helen Losse is the author of two full length poetry books, Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011), Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009), and two chapbooks.  She has recent poetry publications in Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, The Pedestal Magazine, ken*again, Referential,  and Georgann Eubanks’ Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont.  She lives in Winston-Salem, NC and is the Poetry Editor for The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.  She blogs at Windows Toward the World.