Poems

Brother Red Gold By Patrick T. Reardon . Brother Red Gold is down the line of succession and covers the flaccid County Building beat for the Deuteronomy Sun, getting by, avoiding line of sight, without complaint. . The scars on his arms are a chronology, chapter and verse, translated shouts, and, at night, close-eyed, he…

Fare well By Patrick T. Reardon At Ainslie and Clark, he sees the clouds open to the dark and sparkling of space, back to the mass of energy in the beginning. .      Hear the call of the thunder.      Cross to green forests.      Hear the horn blow.      Awake, you careless people. .…

Salt By Patrick T. Reardon . Child of the Century was born in a wash of salt water, a covenant with breathing, an opening of the eyes to power and unknowing.      In the beginning. Child of the Century raised the psalter in his hands to sing a psalm of salt covenant, a canticle of…

Pa By Patrick T. Reardon . Drive Chronicles Avenue straight out of downtown for three miles to the railroad bridge, empty as a Roman ruin, turn right toward the spray-paint chaos of the Grass Lake rocks, right again onto Esther Road, to 135, and there’s tight-wound Pa sitting on the dusk porch while nervous fireflies,…

Mercy! Charity! Faith! Holy! By Patrick T. Reardon . Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! — Allen Ginsberg, “Footnote to ‘Howl’ ” . Answers are demanded of too many questions. . Write the vision, plain as a tabletop, carved into barroom wood. .…

Goddess By Patrick T. Reardon . The Mexican goddess enfleshed in McDonald’s with a wide smile under her wide mountain nose and her children, all girls under eight, alert to the kiosk choices, and her thin husband, studying the receipt and, for no reason, remembering when he was thinner, younger, and stood waiting for work…

Canticle By Patrick T. Reardon . Water-splashed forehead. Product of times.  Cheek slapped, new name, chrism. Child of century. Sign of. . Communion of saints. Myrrh burial. Finger ringed. Deathly afraid. Rolling frenzy. .      Praying the uncertainties.      Intoning the mysteries.      Chanting the doubts. . Frankincense body. All the days of my life.…

Grandma By Patrick T. Reardon . The showers have turned to drizzle. Drops fall heavily now from the black limbs of a bare tree in the glare of the street light. She is tired. She is worse today. Some talk and some smoke and some run for office. She has laughed at the scandals of…

The Tribune writes the Bible By Patrick T. Reardon . We are not afraid of height. During slack summer, we will write a better Bible. . This will be a new Genesis, new Exodus. A chart-able Jesus.  Lots of graphics. Revelations galore. . Clearer language.  Our copy desk will see to that. . Nothing will…