Rain on the Lake
by Joseph Ferguson
The rainy wall of strident silence
popping craters in the flat lake,
steams the world sepia,
sizzling yellow trees
to a crackling corona
about the black hole pool.
The Hawk
All wings and silence,
The hawk dropped
Onto thin air,
Adjusted her flight
An inch to the left,
Then sailed
Between two trees,
With nothing to spare.
Goose Woman*
Backpack brimming cheap
Bread,
Engulfed by hungry fowl
Honking,
She coddles like babies.
“Don’t worry,”
Her voice soft down,
“It’s just a noise.”
Behind her
A great dam
Built before the divorce
Of beauty and function,
Looms like
Aztec stone, and.
Above,
The churning
Gray nebul
Of autumn skies.
* “Goose Woman” previously published in The Write Room (2010).
BIO
Joseph Ferguson is an author, poet, and journalist appearing in a variety of small press, regional and national publications. He wrote propaganda for a living for a variety of entities for some 25 years. He is a former editor and critic for Hudson Valley, ran the Fiction Workshop for the Poughkeepsie Library District, and regularly reviews books and videos for Climbing, The American Book Review, Kirkus Indie, and a number of other publications.
He also sells rock climbing t-shirts through his website: http://www.bumluckhome.com/
