No Death for Old Habits by David Spicer

A man stood in the silent rain watching me.

Drenched, he wore a black raincoat and blond hair.

His blond hair and raincoat drenched, he ghost-stared.

I drifted in, out of his gaze, but he stayed.

A stranger’s gaze, it had my father’s staid eyes.

They didn’t haunt me like some living eyes did.

A friendly ghost’s eyes that didn’t live to haunt.

He stood there, a mannequin in the rain.

His voice silent as rain that stood suspended.

His mouth opened like a zero from heaven.

As though heaven opened for him, his mouth,

to say what he had to say to me, left here.

Here he didn’t know what to say, as in life.

The man just stood watching in the silent rain.

David Spicer has published poems in Santa Clara Review, Moria, Oyster River Pages, and elsewhere.  Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks, the latest Tribe of Two. His second collection, Waiting for the Needle Rain, is now available. 

Letter From My Father the General by David Spicer

I don’t mean to intrude, the courier interrupted

us at prayer in the Baptist shack with no

stained-glass windows and too many cobwebs

and dust bunnies, but I have a letter from your

father the general. Outside, the sleet broke

the sky and then melted. She handed me the letter

and left, the schoolgirls, veterans, and cowboys

hushed. I dismissed choir practice with a Bless you

and have a good summer, climbing the stairs

to my room. Poured champagne and ate a banana 

after I pulled the letter from my pocket,

reading it by lantern light. Son, it began, 

I know you’ve regarded me as superhuman,

and think I’ve shunned you for choosing

the ministry instead of genetics or geology.

You’ve conquered icebergs with more

grace than I have with massacres

and slaughters from a government plane.

My victims’ blood seeps from my heart

to the boots that lackeys have licked. 

But I’ve learned, as I scrape through this

last day toward death and damnation,

that the loveliest reality I’ve known

is an orchard of cherry trees. 

May you blossom.

David Spicer has poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Easy Street, Third Wednesday, Reed Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He's author of Everybody Has a Story and five chapbooks, his latest chapbook From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, from Flutter Press.

Until the Cattails Sway by David Spicer

What’s your favorite fruit?

Victoria asked. The japonica 

when I wear a kimono in my 

bedroom above the courtyard, 

I said. Now, when I taste my 

first bite, I hear moths murmur 

to her dances, dream of the cemetery 

under the moon and watch headstones 

tease their namesakes in the ground. 

Caisson horses wait while she 

struggles each night. Where to now,

I ask? Chemo’s teased her long 

enough as she wheezes its promises, 

and I may as well listen to Procol 

Harum sing Christmas music 

than watch her grip the bed rail.

Or remember that nobody escapes 

the mausoleum after unlocking

the mansion’s door. Now, with no 

japonicas to remind me how much 

she aches, even as I watch butterflies 

and geese share the sky, I pray I’ll 

never surrender until the cattails 

sway, telling me she’s free.

David Spicer, the author of one full-length collection and four chapbooks and the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books, lives in Memphis with his wife and two Maine Coon cats. He likes to binge watch crime shows, listen to singer-songwriters, and obsess about poems.