Dan Albergotti
Sound Construction
Whether made by beggar or bard, by goldfinch or god,
the sound that cuts the air today will pass beyond
whatever ear might catch one note or word
and just keep going until it sinks in sand
or dissipates like a cloud. Every law
you are counting on to save you
is the high-pitched bellow of an elk
in rut. A hush holds ahead, then it’s there,
and then it’s gone. The carpenter seems bent
on breaking his saw, its whine through hard wood
rising under his measured weight, building something
as it tears through, a sound structure waiting to collapse.
The General on the Beach
The general wore his greatcoat to inspect
the bathers and the lifeguards at the beach.
His medals flared in fierce sunlight as he let his gaze
drift wistfully to the ocean’s even horizon.
This, he mused to himself, is what the torture’s for.
Somewhere out there were submarines full of fire.
The general flicked a grain of sand off his epaulet
like a fly and stepped over a mother’s bare legs,
planting his boot in her toddler’s castle.
All the children began to screech like gulls,
and all the gulls swarmed in silence, hovering over
the stench of sand and flesh, hoping for a meal.
Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008) and Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), as well as a limited-edition chapbook, The Use of the World (Unicorn Press, 2013). His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Five Points, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and two editions of the Pushcart Prize, as well as other journals and anthologies. He is a professor of English at Coastal Carolina University.
Return to March 2017 Edition
Whether made by beggar or bard, by goldfinch or god,
the sound that cuts the air today will pass beyond
whatever ear might catch one note or word
and just keep going until it sinks in sand
or dissipates like a cloud. Every law
you are counting on to save you
is the high-pitched bellow of an elk
in rut. A hush holds ahead, then it’s there,
and then it’s gone. The carpenter seems bent
on breaking his saw, its whine through hard wood
rising under his measured weight, building something
as it tears through, a sound structure waiting to collapse.
The General on the Beach
The general wore his greatcoat to inspect
the bathers and the lifeguards at the beach.
His medals flared in fierce sunlight as he let his gaze
drift wistfully to the ocean’s even horizon.
This, he mused to himself, is what the torture’s for.
Somewhere out there were submarines full of fire.
The general flicked a grain of sand off his epaulet
like a fly and stepped over a mother’s bare legs,
planting his boot in her toddler’s castle.
All the children began to screech like gulls,
and all the gulls swarmed in silence, hovering over
the stench of sand and flesh, hoping for a meal.
Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008) and Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), as well as a limited-edition chapbook, The Use of the World (Unicorn Press, 2013). His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Five Points, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and two editions of the Pushcart Prize, as well as other journals and anthologies. He is a professor of English at Coastal Carolina University.
Return to March 2017 Edition