Three Poems by Don Mager

August Journal:  Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The mower plunges through shower wet
late morning grass.  Mulch dribbles out in
pasty clumps.  Where the creek right angles
over small rapids to lose itself
in the woods, along the back stretch of
yard and slippery mud, swirling blades
ride over clay mounds and dark frog holes.
In swift splats, they escape and leap high
into the water.  As the mower
pushes past, gouges of fresh deer hooves fill
with small puddles.  Its mandibles aimed,
a Deer Fly strikes through jeans and sweaty
long sleeves.  Outraged burning welts flare up.
Ignoring them, swirling blades grind on.



August Journal:  Thursday, August 8, 2013

Afternoon shade sucks draperies of
humidity from pools of dark shade
up into indolent canopies.
In their lofts Cicadas crackle with
the dry persistence of small machines.
Their rapid snare drum brushes twirl
in limp vibrations of heavy air.
The ear's horizon stretches far down
the creek cut where on their unseen nest,
quarreling adolescent Hawks caw
like disgruntled crows.  Far above their
ears' horizons, the parents ride the
sky and watch.  Afternoon is hammock dazed--
mosquito wary--and iced tea glad.



August Journal:  Monday, August 12, 2013

Dusk wakes up into deep grottoes of
Tourmaline and Jade.  Air holds itself
captive to the amber light.  Its eyes
sink into indolence.  Its ears rise
to wrest control.  Sounds describe its fourth
dimension.  Dusk's ears are mesmerized
by nameless cornucopias of
crackles, chatters, clickings, buzzes, hums
and distant caws.  They drink them up like
thirsty sponges.  They imbibe pallets
of twangling flavors.  On their nerves, they
gather vibrancies of textures:  crisp,
hard, crinkly, crunchy, wafting, fallow.
Dusk's fourth dimension intones them all.

Don Mager's chapbooks and volumes of poetry are:  To Track the Wounded One, Glosses, That Which is Owed to Death, Borderings, Good Turns and The Elegance of the Ungraspable, Birth Daybook Drive Time and Russian Riffs.  He is retired with degrees from Drake University (BA), Syracuse University (MA) and Wayne State University (PhD).  He was the Mott University Professor of English at Johnson C. Smith University from 1998-2004 where he served as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters (2005-2011).   As well as a number of scholarly articles, he has published over 200 poems and translations from German, Czech, and Russian.  He lives in Charlotte, NC.