Two Poems

Lance Levens

Hog Killing

We watched them chase the sow, then slit her throat.
Fall, clean air, wood smoke and the first drawn blood
Chad claimed for his momma. A sow's blood was good
for everything that ailed her. A single stoat
thrust his moist snout out on a lumber slat
while the blood was flying like a scarlet rain.
Red pepper flakes in the chitterlings which were clean
because they fed her coal to scour her gut.
Chad stirred the blood with a lard paddle that
caught bits of fat or gristle. Once he carried
his mother a bucket he had failed to clean.
She pitched a hissy fit. It seems hog fat
draws critters. "If you'd listened to me and married,
like a good son," she said, "you wouldn't be so mean."

***

Signs and Wonders (Richmond, August, 1863)

The August heat makes gravity increase.
My body's like rust-colored pig iron while
tonight we sit outside to watch the stars.
Tobacco keeps my mind alert—that
and vowels rounded in the mouth, some lines
from Keats or Tennyson. I'm just about
to start "The Ode to Wellington" when a light
begins to climb above the poplar trees.

It crosses on a level trajectory
before it mounts, little by little, glowing
slightly more bright each time it rises.
There's murmuring among the guests. A balloon,
someone offers. That's impossible.
Balloons are huge. The light is wavering
as if its luminance is not assured.
Tea cups in hand we cross the lawn to see.

Mr. Davis sends a boy for facts.
The light is higher than the evening star.
The women huddle, point and whisper. Times
are hard: The Bloody Angle, The Devil's Den—
these have left everybody jangled, prone
to nerves. An older woman starts to whine
about the signs that point toward the End.
Grim, the men line up behind their wives.

When Caesar finally faced the bloody knives,
the heavens were on fire with signs and wonders.
Men slip their arms around their frightened wives
until the only man without a wife
is me, alone, as usual. My front,
the bon vivant, the urbane manners—starts
to slip. I ease toward the safer rear.
If memory calls up Nathalie's eyes I'll crack.

I try to lighten up the gloomy moment
with the old tale of Phaethon and how
he tried to steer Apollo's mighty car
across the sky, but the steeds proved too much.
They drove the flaming chariot to earth,
hence the darker race's origin,
those men the horses of Apollo scorched.
I don't think anybody hears a word.

The flame is higher now, but slowing down.
The women stop their whispering. We stand
wondering, when Mr. Davis' boy returns.
The light—it seems—is a flaming buzzard!
Troops caught and doused it with kerosene, then lit
it just to watch it burn. It boosts their spirits.
Their hatred of the buzzard knows no limit.
The flame dies; once again, the world seems safe.

Lance Levens is a writer/ Latin teacher (St. Andrews on the Marsh, Savannah GA). His short stories, poems and essays have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Chimera, Raintown Review and others. Jubilate, a chapbook(Pudding House Press) was published in 2007, the year he was nominated by Storyglossia for a Pushcart Prize in fiction. He received honorable mention in the 2010 New England Shakespeare Sonnet contest and was received his second Pushcart Nomination (poetry) in 2010.

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