Two Poems by David Chorlton

January’s Climb

We step around the fluted ruins

of a fallen saguaro,

stop to look at a circling red-tail

braking on the wing,

enjoy the warm wind

that catches on the thorns of a dry

ocotillo, then take a pinch

from a creosote bush

between our fingers to rub

and release the desert smell.

Rocks balance on rocks,

the sunlight turns

needles into orange fur on the pads

of cactus, the trail

rises in a low trajectory

from a gulley

to the crest of the mountain

where it fuses with stone.

From here we can go

only into the mountain,

become part of it

and lie still,

waiting for the moon

to appear in all

its blazing clarity

with a single eye

and open mouth, or else

slip down the way we came,

breathing in the darkness as we go.

Manchester’s Artist

The apple must have scared him

when the artist, in his youth,

painted a still life

that his mother liked

because it looked so real. He never

used that red again

but chose a life alone

composing factories and brick houses

into pictures where light

cast no shadows

and the sky drank smoke from smokestacks.

He put on his stained raincoat

and rode a train to take his holiday

in a city as dreary as his own

so as never to face beauty

that might have ruffled the radical calm

in the centre of his eye.

* Manchester's Artist refers to L. S. Lowry

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His newest book is from The Bitter Oleander Press: Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant.