Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021
The Poet Goes to Ground Richard Spilman He began in wonder, spinning stars from their galaxies, raising beasts from the muck, weaving from vision to vision the churning light show at the center of the sun. Like an eremite he sat at the mouth of his cave torturing words into cubist constructions; like a surgeon opened the body, so modestly clothed, to new forms. None of it worked—the stars cooled, the beasts returned to their dens, and the cosmic spectacle bored by its constant brilliance. In time he packed his box of magic tricks and sat, like a child, cross-legged in the gravel of a garden path picking through stones for the ones that glittered.
Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and of a chapbook, Suspension. His poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gargoyle, and Image. He lives in West Virginia.
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