Thrush Poetry Journal
  • ABOUT
  • ARCHIVES
  • MARCH 2023
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • AWARDS
  • MASTHEAD

Lawrence Eby

26. Machinist in the Snow 

I’ve rigged the night to dig
shelter. Soil shatters 
             against the snow. I dig 

            for warmth. 

                                          I dig to keep
              my joints from freezing. All 
              the icicles slack like bats─

           this cavern of trees. If I bore 

deep enough, both ice 

          and star will break from their 

stems. Collapse into my body, there 
           is a balance here that I need 

           a home deep enough for me, shallow 
enough for this material 
          above. When the 

morning cranks into its housing the light─
                I’ve arrived. Birdsong. Wind. 

Me in the earth, waiting:
            flood.




27. Machinist in the Snow 

Concrete bucket       the city that tonics 
its greenroom to the sky 
           a gift


 to itself       these lights I 

wander toward       electric engine 
turbine of day         the forest rebels 

 
or maybe just I in the blink 
of rotation       I’ve shut 

the 
whole 
city 
down 

                  prowler as I would 
                  prowl:         the rattle of tools 
                                      on my belt my heavy 
                                      boots slush through mud 

I charge toward 
              a border in an endless field of trees 

             move body move 
             as if you move the whole forest with you 

the trajectories of everything together 
                         as roots and branch in a soil 

               of no 
               gravity         the wind 
               here has lost its curve          when I 

return this city will emerge as concrete 
            mountain, the curl of branches
            whistling around its 
charcoal lights.




32. Machinist in the Snow 

If I lift the ocean in an invisible cup, the roots of water 
would make a new home in the brain of oxygen. A barren 

land emerges. Elephant tusks, radiator, the milk of all mammals 
spoiled in jars. You emerge                        follow me 

and where have I lost 
the scent of the past. A television                 it’s time 

scuttles the cracked, evaporated floor. Who 
are you? The shadows                                    you 

have followed me till now then retreat        always you 
into the propellers of time. No light from the sun, 

it returns home to the underside of the earth. A music 
bubbles like soap                                          have heard me 

into my ears, a tambourine, snare. You with your 
speaker of what I have left. I stand and what 

now will I do? If you are here to tell me, then tell me. 
If you are here to reset this body, then do so 

delicately. The water is restless in its suspension. But this sand 
is breathing again. To make one move, is to 

terrify another. I cannot                                you will 
do this                                                            begin 
again                                                              again.




Lawrence Eby writes from Southern California and is currently an MFA student at CSUSB. His first book, Flight of August, won the 2013 Louise Bogan Award and is forthcoming from Trio House Press in the Spring 2014. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, Arroyo Literary Review, the Superstition Review, as well as others. He is the founder of Orange Monkey Publishing, a small poetry press, and has served as Poetry Editor for Ghost Town. He volunteers time on the Inlandia Publications Committee and is a founding member of PoetrIE, a writing collective in California’s Inland Empire.




Return to May 2014 Edition