in parentheses

Paul Pruitt is a law librarian by trade, an historian by training, and a writer by compulsion. He has written poetry for many years and nervously congratulates himself on having found his own voice. Equipped with the said voice, he has been able to place a decent number of poems. Voila!

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Three O’ Clock, Up in the Pines

From my perch on the White Rock some
Hundreds of feet above my town, I
Can feel currents of air, hear
Crows talk, see dogs bark, watch the trends
Of wooded paths, the blocky maze of sidewalks,
Streets, and alleyways, survey many
Premises of new-built brick, catch
Beams from gazing balls sunk in goldfish ponds.

Mid-afternoon—quiescence is all the rage.
But the windy clouds gather—and then I see
Shadow armies ranging the streets, galumphing
‘Round corners and over backyard fences. Lurking
At the forest’s edge, squat chessmen shake fists,
Loose flights of birds, plant spears. And see—knights
Hug their maces, dangling inventions & falling helm-first
(Every time!) from barbed, patient steeds.

Eventuality brings forth the sun, which fighting free
Sweeps invaders, defenders from the streets,
Pushes horse and man back into foliage,
Sends this war of outsized illusions into a
Backward-looking space. Doubtless some god will
Place those great, blundering toys on a shelf marked
Visions—to keep them holy-fresh, a flashing treasure
For anyone who takes the White Rock’s measure.

And Less Greek

I think that when this pen—this white jotter pen—
Was made, a nymph chased by Apollo inserted herself
Inside, a spatial marriage of blue and pink.

And when that pen by great Apollo
Hexed was sold at Temple Gifts of Delphi, the stage
Was set for transformation, transmigration,

Transplantation. O’er the wine-dark sea it came to
This land, and there began its career of automatic writing:
Pure, flowing, antique, Homeric. Sudden beauty filled our

Family’s grocery lists, lunch box reminders, memos to self–with
Shapes of triangles, posts and lintels, Mayflies, horseshoes,
Celtic broaches, and great beasts with teeth and open

Mouths. All these we took to signify much fine muchness, though
Perhaps it was mostly jotting, in jocularity, such phrases as
“Hey, hey, ἀρετή”. There is no telling what it may have writ,

Absent a linguistic bump beyond my jump. Now you’ll agree, of course,
That language was given to us by the gods? But sometimes the gods just—
I’m convinced that often they just—chatter away? One thing more:

Was I wise, do you think, to take that pen, pack it in a leatherette
Case and stow it under robes in a dresser drawer,
A place where even shining Phoebus might not think to look?

One Kind of Religion

The King of Shadows worships with
Immediate focus
Artemis, goddess of the chase, of
Chasing whatever runs beyond the light, or lites
In the canopy above. He braids his
Senses together and casts them like a lariat at

Foes formidable or formless—he doesn’t care, the
Thing is to stretch the run, to splash the timeless
Moment, endless and chaste, on landscapes
Set with goddess’ foliage. He intends the
Night to end in violence but rejoices
In his devotion, bloody or sleek.

And afterwards, stretched on soft bed,
He lives the course again, ever again, and
Twitching a leg, keeps his dreams to himself.

Alliance: Not Going Gentle

A cloak of protection—that must have been behind the bargain,
Such a thing little known
Down the millennia. But the lares and penates cleared a

Place, and the hearth was overlaid, infused with scents of the pack,
While canines’ genealogies
Branched. Nature had been content to cull the weaklings, build

The strong, the fast, the bloodthirsty along specific lines—we would
Say bloodlines—and to keep specific creations
Solitary, coexisting at times in the Tropic of Symbiosis

But seldom in the Valley of Cohabitation, much less the Vale of Tears.
But we, we gained guardian spirits,
Warm household gods—who can hunt, guard, challenge, assess the very

Air for trouble, hearing also the vibrations of ill-wishers, toothy creatures
Slouching near our
Resting places. In all such spaces these familial deities share our meals, our

Soft Regard, share our sorrows, sympathies for those who spring the trap of
Hopelessness, fearfulness. Few
If any—Monsters, Haints, Hairy Men—can pierce the cloth of the cloak

Mentioned above, the reality of duality, wrapper of the things beneath.
But when, rarely, we are the hunted,
Warped ‘midst woof and fury, well—our frumious gods interpose,
Flashing slashing-teeth, fixated on dragging down the hunters—down
Where the perturbed dead
Are glumly housed, slain by fiat of the fanged Godhead.

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