SageGreenJournal.org
voices out of the West, mostly poetry, personal to planetary
( When we were young . . . )
David Feela
Arriola, Colorado
Retired teacher, poet, free-lance writer, & workshop instructor.
David's chapbook,Thought Experiments(Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry collection,The Home Atlas(WordTech Editions, 2009), is currently available through the publisher & online.
Shameless
David Feela
Page 178 of Exotic Mushrooms
serves up Plate 146, and on this plate
rests Phallus impudicus, a steamy
sprout of a mushroom that looks like, well…
if you know Latin I need say no more.
Plate 146 also announces, Not Edible,
a warning included for the soft-headed,
those who demand everything and want it
all spelled out. I might have penciled in
my own words but I tried that once
in the third grade before a stiff ruler
bruised my knuckles, wielded by a nun—
Sister Gabriel—who guarded the pure,
white page, archangel at the gates of desire.
By fifth grade our textbooks contained
not only hastily written words but sketches too,
and some of them surprising for their
anatomical correctness. Fifth graders knew
so much more than exams could assess,
but opening our books back then
we had no way to understand character or
the dark soil from which it so suddenly grew.