TWO PIECES BY PETER MAGLIOCCO

LETTER FROM DEATH ROW

 

Then there was a texture to everything

almost tactile to the ear's regard:

& what of the wildflowers

beheld like fiery sentinels in the wind?

My ire paces like a madman

through the crucible of memory.

Darkening the faces of inmates

as Artaud chants

to the savage beast of silence

(so god-like! he murmurs)

where there were wind-songs

of forgotten men chiding us.

 

For nothing rises

from this silk pit of dreams,

 

not even the smell

of burnt bones

painted as words

on the wings

 

of untouchable hip-

hoppers weighing

you down

 

with

curses

 

from

the born

again

 

dead

 

 

THE SWAN'S RHAPSODY

 

Dalliance for the moment enmeshed

in radiant curls of hair (multiplying)

into a universe of strands.

Royal bred girls had the best hair styles

for male fingers to explore

during necking. The horseplay

of shadows submerging sensual contact

only temporarily, before ebony hands

became like Casanova's caressing

moonlit whiteness of flesh,

the neck's swan-like curvature

whose contour fingertips

coaxed a moaning rapture

from love's twisted music

 

 

About Peter Magliocco:

Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he's edited the lit-zine ART:MAG for over 25 years. He's had recent poetry in NOTHING NO ONE NOWHERE, DEAD SNAKES, GOLD DUST, SCYTHE, THE MEDULLA REVIEW and elsewhere. His latest chapbooks are Imparadised (Calliope Nerve Media), Discarded Poems (Scars Publications), and Nude Poetry Garage Sale (Virgogray Press). He was Pushcart Prize nominated for poetry in 2010.