Read poems from Steve's award-nominated book!

Steve's style continues to be a favorite with readers and editors. His poems, while simple and accessible on the surface, often open a complex recall within the reader, through beautifully crafted images and language. Poems in the book have been described as having the impact of short, short stories. Enjoy pieces from his book which was and entrant for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and for a National Book Award.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Talking With Triggers




Talking With Triggers


Perched in a live oak
cloaked in moss
my uncle waited
for a deer, wild boar
or turkey,
while beneath him
two men idled
out of the brush
and argued.
Neither looked up.
A shotgun blast
from one blew
the other back.
A life soaked quickly
into the crispy
forest floor.

A sheriff brought
my uncle home,
ripped gaping holes
into the family
with verbal buckshot
and left with us
a loaded shell of doubt.

Six years later,
barely 21,
my uncle’s own life
was soaked up by sand
on a riverbed
in Southeast Asia.

Two of the men
who had been
in a Georgia forest
one fall afternoon
are now reduced
to piles of  lead
and bone. The shell
of doubt still rests
in the chamber.