Alec Hershman
The Hostage is Ungenerous
So there were such things as guns,
heavy and inanimate, dark
with concentration, the fifty plus
years stuffed into a bullet―
its conical tip, flat, crass,
disappointing―and the force,
of course, that the barrel meets
in stone is the head, the slate chill
of the eyes on the trigger, blue
as dimes. What is the weather
if not a force of their own making―
the gunner's tongue fat with power,
the other's lip rasping on a cigarette,
also fat, both fat, the impossible fuses.
Alec Hershman lives in St. Louis where he teaches Writing and Psychology to Fashion and Interior Design students. More of his poems are available in current and forthcoming issues of Fifth Wednesday Journal, The American Poetry Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Drunken Boat, Qwerty, Permafrost, and Hawai'i Pacific Review. You can find out more at alechershmanpoetry.com
Return to January 2014 Edition
So there were such things as guns,
heavy and inanimate, dark
with concentration, the fifty plus
years stuffed into a bullet―
its conical tip, flat, crass,
disappointing―and the force,
of course, that the barrel meets
in stone is the head, the slate chill
of the eyes on the trigger, blue
as dimes. What is the weather
if not a force of their own making―
the gunner's tongue fat with power,
the other's lip rasping on a cigarette,
also fat, both fat, the impossible fuses.
Alec Hershman lives in St. Louis where he teaches Writing and Psychology to Fashion and Interior Design students. More of his poems are available in current and forthcoming issues of Fifth Wednesday Journal, The American Poetry Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Drunken Boat, Qwerty, Permafrost, and Hawai'i Pacific Review. You can find out more at alechershmanpoetry.com
Return to January 2014 Edition