Star Rise in Taos

– Poem by G.M. Palmer & Painting by Jean Paul Sandoval –

 

 

There was an eclipse this morning
we couldn’t see. It wasn’t the smoke
from states away but our place
on this lonely earth where the moon
naked and black in the sky
lives at just the wrong angle
to reach its climax while we watch.
Morning skies are obscured
by a dusting of calamity
that burns away in the furious sun.
We hide from the heat until night
is lit by the coolest light
from infinite, inaccessible souls.
Even as Arizona burns
the stars in Taos overlap
like the agate vaults
that glitter over Asphodel
where now I am Persephone:
forever in love but here
only for this tender season.

 

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G.M. Palmer lives with his wife and daughters on a poodle farm in North Florida. If he’s not writing, he’s swimming, teaching, cooking, playing on the farm, or performing with Girl Scout Fight Club. Called the Lester Bangs of poetry criticism, his poetry and prose can be found at Trop, Tahoma Literary Review, Rats Ass Review, Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Raintown Review, eVerse Radio, Gravitas, Goliad, #InternationalPoetryCircle and elsewhere. His book With Rough Gods is available from Jagged Door Press. His most recent poetry book is an epic in three parts, Olyver Currant, out from Art City Books. Follow him on Twitter @gm_palmer 

 

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Jean Paul Sandoval was born in 1994, in Paramonga, Lima, Peru. At the age of 12, he migrated to the United States. Since then, Jean Paul attended middle school, high school and college in New Jersey. In 2016, Jean Paul started exploring painting. His work is included in the Hudson Community College art collection.