Selected Poems by Robert Beveridge

Photo Source: PxHere

Necropol

We sleep together

under the cold dark

sun of night

her father between bodies

keeps us from touching

moving together in sleep

the children are lost in the snowdrift

we have searched for them all day

now the warmth of the campfire dies

the cold

of the deep

north surrounds us

yet we cannot touch

for shelter

or warmth

The Rite

The old monk sits shirtless in the chair beside me

on the redeye flight from Newark to Pittsburgh.

His torso is covered with red scars

where, he says, he has beaten himself

with leather whips daily for forty-five

wonderful years.

In all that time he has

lain with many women yet he has never taken one

in the way we of the younger generation do.

Instead, he says, a wistful cast to his voice,

they serve a different function; these slight wraiths

cleanse my soul. Gazing on beauty makes me think

beautiful thoughts. I nod my head, silent.

Spelling Bee

I

on the blackboard

chalk sketches

a barrage of nine-year-olds

cover their ears

and shriek in chorus

II

spelling the names

of those around us:

Loki

Pluto

Hades

Darryl

III

the teachers begs a spelling

only three children left

the prize a plastic

St. Christopher.

IV

Darryl is God spelled backwards.

V

Bow-tied child

spelling death

on the blackboard.

Tiresias

come down

to my white powdery river

you can just take

a quick dip

and get out

I won't keep you around

skinny-dipping only

in this place baby

you're so beautiful

clothes shouldn't hide

that body

once you swim

you'll want to come back

just like the rest

I know

I've been here forever

Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Pulsar, Tessellate, and Scarlet Leaf Review, among others.