Poems by Larry D. Thomas
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The Drummer
by Larry D. Thomas
From Canary Fall 2020
Larry resides in the Chihuahuan Desert, where he enjoys a magnificent view of the 9,000-foot Organ Mountains. Three miles to the east of his home lies the Rio Grande River flowing to its destination of the Gulf of Mexico 900 miles away.
Even in my dreams,
I hear the moonstruck
goddess of the Gulf,
pounding her membrane
of sharkskin, her drumbeat
marching leeward
toward my travel trailer
gleaming in moonglow
like a strange, metallic shrine.
I picture her submerged,
featureless face staring
everywhere, matted
with tentacles, her boneless
body advancing, receding,
cursed with the permanence
of motion, a mass of brine
and liquid cells graced
inside and out with shells,
trinkets of serrated teeth
dead and alive, a goddess
of nothing but mouth
and motion, devouring land,
her drumbeat throbbing
in the bloody, calamitous
muscle of my heart.
© Larry D. Thomas