Patrick T. Reardon

POETRY

Bible moon

One-Cent mourns his coming death.
Jungle fills the clearing.

Bible moon in dawn sky over Lake Michigan,
moan of the shearwater, moan of the flame owl
and hiss and peep and snort and twit.

The bold bluff overhangs the water.
Blue moon, white moon, red moon, green.
Lear lost. Job subdued. Two thieves dead.

In his eye, One-Cent looked good in a dress,
summer flowing, rippling in breezes,
loose light embrace of fabric.

In his eye, One-Cent knew hired-man work.
Knew heart work.
Knew the sacred void.

Holy cave! Holy silence!

Mountain the rain. Volcano sadness.
Eagle the road to Egypt.

Music the building, the black soil,
the clandestine rat at sunset.

In his eye, One-Cent stacked bricks,
arm-bounced dollies down tavern steps,
took the sledge to the steel frame,
like the sledge to the knees of the thieves.
He walked to work in the bus strike.

One-Cent stacks words,
some for the library,
most for the air,
a few on paper
stuffed by the housekeeping rat
in the tunnel network of darkness.

Secret place

Secret place under shadow,
axe upon the tree, sorrowful noise.

See: One-Cent plows fields of sky.

In the tabernacle,
the common wood pigeon and
the dusky turtle dove.

A line through the planet,
shaft through continents and landscapes,
carved wood globe, gift for an edgy reign.

See: One-Cent walks the death camp steps.

On the right, on the left,
the holy root, the flowered almond,
powerful scarlet — drink
the waters of conviction,
of birth, of enduring.

See: Terror by day, arrow by night,
One-Cent dashes his foot, falls from height
— nonetheless, hens the parish of sparrows.

Thunder in the morning, the roar
of sewer rivers — let no other sound be heard.

Subway diggers under the river
from each side through metamorphic
rock and marble following computations
to blind answers.

See: The purple veil torn from top to bottom,
the breathing of One-Cent.

Patrick T. Reardon, a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry, worked for 32 years as a Chicago Tribune reporter. He has published six poetry collections. His manuscript Every Marred Thing: A Time in America won the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize for poetry collection from Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans and is forthcoming from Lavender Ink.

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Image: The Full Moon over Water by J.M.W. Turner. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.