Walter Bargen: Which brings us to one certainty. . .
can you tell me the colors
sweeping the sky this evening,
can you tell me exactly the volcanic-ash
effects, the drought and dust effects,
the shift of light along the spectrum
Walter Bargen: Double-Yoked
Rain dissolves the bedroom windows. Glass puddles and glistens over the deck. Sirens and a storm arrive. Every house in south county stricken. Dawn smeared across the horizon, through the … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Dogs of Beauty
Somewhere in some other place their kind are wild, meant for the verdant and exotic, and on the west slopes of the coastal range, near Palos Verdes, where the foothills … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: This Falling Away Age
We are at that age when any moment all words are last words. Some might argue that it could be any age and they are right: Golden (probably not), Enlightenment … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Real Rumors
Now that it’s done being undone, or, at least, the end of the beginning of undone, depending on the harrumphing water pumps and which side of the bulldozer blade is … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Paint By Numbers
. . . stairs for the void running down to the garden ─ Wisława Szymborska . From fallen fence to ragged tree line, on late September afternoons, each stiff knee-high … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Gorilla God
The interview room cold, the angles softly hardened against sound. The inevitable question arises: What makes a good poem? I’m never prepared. On radios across the country, silence pulls a … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Vaudeville Visigoths
The first couple in a cartoon bed on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone. All Fred could yell was, “Yabba dabba do!” We didn’t see anything more except … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Circus Coil
When I think of blood I think of you that night, not because you dodged a bullet and nothing so easy as sidestepping an office intrigue or petty paternity suit … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Interruption to the End
I haven’t seen the end or if I did see the end I didn’t know. A litany of denials the most blindingly likely, and now I spend too much … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Old Rain
Up down, up down, no pause, no let up in the falling. Ovate, serrate, oblong, lobed, green scales weighing each droplet then bending to the fall─a full sky yet … Continue reading
Walter Bargen: Midwest Estate Sale
The postcards catch my attention amid the strips of tape that secure prices to books: paperbacks fifty cents, hardbacks $2, linen chest $175, ten disk cd changer $40, and … Continue reading
