Erik Noonan: California Poets Part 8, Three Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Erik Noonan
Three Poems
Gold
for Greg Santos
Air slants down
and makes dawn
a radiant space
turn
off your eyes
people
are talking to
each other
Orpheus
Later they claimed Apollo was my father
And heroes would follow in my footsteps
A song stirred the rocks of the Earth
Its melody cut gods off from humans
The flame sputtered at my wedding so
They whispered a dryad was what did me in
Meaning my wife the Symplegades
The Styx the Monarchs of Hell itself
No one can say why I let her go
Least of all me but a lover who has felt
The joy of love even once can't be called sad
I left pieces of myself everywhere I sang
It seems only fitting that my body would
Also be cut to shreds and the moment
Before they tore me apart I saw how
In the end humans only serve the Fates
But can't persuade them I glimpsed their eyes
In the Maenads’ eyes as they charged
A new song I thought but no time to sing
Star
A perverse
Wilted flavor darkens the palette,
The sunlight has lost its whiteness,
Tinged bluish gold in the nicotine
Weave of the curtains. The perfume
The lady visitor puts down
On the dresser, while the child
Is allowed to watch her unpack,
Has the scent of memory, though
He breathes it for the first time.
Bare feet step soft on cool tile—
The boy follows her downstairs
To a bright expansive room, where
In the airtight undersea chamber
Of a mind that has grown hard
Toward itself in the forty years since,
She turns to him, smiles, takes his hand.
For Cathy
Author Bio:
Erik Noonan is the author of the poetry collections Stances and Haiku d’Etat, and his writing appears in the anthology Cross Strokes. He is Managing Director at JackLeg Press and Assistant Dean at the San Francisco Film School.
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