Three Poems by JB Mulligan

 the woodchuck

The woodchuck like a lost purse
in the grass, feeding, unaware
in its pure, hungry meaning
of the meaning around it:
trees, me, sky, the grass,
all meaning, all relation
in a single point, chewing
away in late afternoon,
one center among many
drab galaxies of so many stars.





death of another moment

Sunlight powders the clouds of sunset.
Gray clots, white-capped, are bunched below
a powder-blue sky, above green mountains

and then it’s chill and dusk, a moment
gone in its happening, traces
scattered, pollen of loss.





dancing with god

Out in a wide field
standing on the feet
of the tall night
like a child on the shoes
of the looming distant father –
its hugeness is so strange
that the mask must be placed
by the loving terrified mind.
The small voice like a bird
among night branches
asks if it can dance on the sky.
There is no answer.
The body trembles with pulse
like a muted tambourine.
The moon seems to smile.
The song begins to grow.
The body is all it can know.



JBMulligan has had poems and stories in several hundred
magazines, including recently, Deronda Review, Red Rock Review,
Bluestem, Stone's Throw, Blue Unicorn, and Autumn Sky, and has had two
chapbooks published: The Stations of the Cross and THIS WAY TO THE
EGRESS, as well as appearing in the anthology Inside Out: A Gathering
of Poets.