Vox Populi
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Sean Sexton: Hold What You Got
As though existence were a nervous disease… — Alfred Corn
9/27
I’m not used to losing teeth—the empty places—but I’m
getting that way. We age and wonder what we’ve done
wrong. In moments before daybreak, 6:37 AM, there’s
nothing to determine through the dark portal to the east.
I hear dripping in the trees, a ticking like an unreliable,
half-broken timepiece; like an old person—still alive
—right at least twice a day.
Calves are coming like clockwork this season. Fifteen to
date on what seemed yesterday like a “things gotten back
to normal day.” Mayhem, butchery, and sheer witlessness
have grown acute with time and become the order of things.
Frogs creak in brief aubade, and I think of what’s next in a
morning yet full of things that have never been.
A lovely downpour passed in the night of this season that
rains in the dark—here the homonym works with it’s tone
of meaning…admittedly an eloquence so soft. Now my son
is driving through the yard, heading out to hunt predators
in the gloom—night vision scope, high-powered rifle—he’s
also a predator. Something must be done, we often say to
one another.
Something, against thievery and laughing tongues we can’t
seem to catch up with…there is wailing—a shrill sound from
those upon whom they prey—
Had now persisted in the woods so long,
That probably it never would be lost.
Copyright 2024 Sean Sexton
Sean Sexton was born and raised on his family’s Treasure Hammock Ranch and divides his time between writing, painting, and managing a 700-acre cow-calf and seed stock operation. His poetry collections include Portals: Poems (Press 53).
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I read this with real interest, Sean. And look forward to meeting you in April. Damn good stuff.
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Thank you George. I’m also excited you’re coming here in April! Can’t wait to take you around and show you how “raggedy-assed the Cow-business in Florida is!”
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Your poetry is wonderful. Beauty, calming, fulll o f activity at time but all in al just beautify written.
Chris
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Thankyou Christine!
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“Mayhem, butchery, and sheer witlessness
have grown acute with time and become the order of things.” Kinda puts things in a nutshell, doesn’t it?
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Yes it does!
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So much these days. I want to outlive all this foolishness. We come by better things naturally. This is all anomaly.
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Such images! How Sean Sexton breathes in the moments, trusting the reader will follow him in the diminishing darknesses of night — and with him, we wait and hope for light and “think of what’s next in a
morning yet full of things that have never been.”. I love Sexton’s poetry — his collection PORTALS never out of reach — just in case I run out of focus, out of attention, affection or regard for what lives so close to me. “Something must be done, we often say to
one another” — so we write, don’t we? We write.
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Well-said, Laure-Anne!
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So sweet to me and my verse Laure-Anne! How did I get so lucky to be in your heart?
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“We age and wonder what we’ve done wrong “. And when I was young I didn’t believe in old age, at least mine. Somehow I thought I would be one of those who danced and then just left, nothing in between.
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I know what you mean, Barbara. I’ll be 70 soon, and I’m amazed that my life so far seems so brief.
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Thankyou for your kind attention Barbara!
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Wish he could get more rest, but — honestly — I’m grateful for Sean Sexton’s insomnia.
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HA! Me too, Warren.
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Oh Warren:
Don’t worry—I never waste sleeplessness on faulty dreams
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