Poems: Mark Goad
The Poet Takes His Dog for a Walk
Acolyte of dog shit, irksome little bag-of-plastic pendulum bumping against his leg, but better than letting the neighbors down. The terrier tethered to the other arm is careless, so much in the world that she knows anything that can be done is rightful. The world is generous. The poet, who finds the world puzzling, sniffs the air as she noses the ground, he searching for verse, she, any good thing. He keeps the dog from running into the killing traffic. The dog keeps him from falling off the earth. They are a homely and necessary couple.
Titanic
Runners hit the beach, flatten, spread, hissing foam tongues the shameless sand. Pebbles scramble and collide, shells flipped like cards, plovers dancing with the tide. Gulls scream. A seal arches, dives. Thunder thrown to the wind. Titanic the engine that drives the world.
Mark Goad is a poet now living in the Boston metro area. He has lived and studied in Chicago, Geneva, Switzerland and Boston (with sojourns in Connecticut and rural Nebraska). His work has been published or is forthcoming in Corvus, Assisi, Decanto, Ayris, and other literary journals. His interest in working in poetic form comes after years of writing and publishing short fiction and non-fiction. What can be said in one hundred words, he’d like to say in ten (perfect words, of course). Looking for those words has been a pleasure. Favored poets include Dickinson, Rilke, Kenyon, Milosz.
