by William Teets

An Dan Day

A last quarter moon cradles our crescent city.

What spirit thieves possess enough courage

to slander our fox and hound love?

Not those who could have, should have,

seized enough soul to deny heaven

is only a sunrise away.

We pawn our heart strings

to starve off winter south of the border—

hope icy winds won’t follow,

burn out all the Christmas tree lights—

and you ask what good do torn fishing nets serve

with so many lost, so many free.

A tawny creole woman still smokes

her dark cherry cigar next to a bait station,

as heavy metal rain begins to fall.

I look toward the wet-littered sky,

await SOS signals from the stars.

Remember the only cleanliness left

in this city of many tongues

are the bell clappers that sound rings

throughout the quarter,

remind us how alone we forever are,

how alone we will forever be.

Japhy Ryder Blues

To hell with Pharaoh,

heeling his hound’s instinct with heavy

chains of pride, to hell with the Great Royal Wife

suffocating experience and joy

I search the largesse of satyrs,

Sodom, Medusa, salt, and concrete,

the last cigarette in Dennis Hopper’s

pack, before he fingers Isis, flips off God

Cloaking Daniel’s eyes from behind,

I delight in every lions’ roar,

break every stained-glass window,

ring every fucking bell

Pilgrims paganly goat-dance

beneath a harvest moon,

jump before falling,

watch for West to wed East

A Siren Song

Shoreline stones blessed by the sky are never sacred enough for clerics, who harp every murder of crows, conform every unleashed spirit in a mind-meld bassinet. Like that time we kissed on Cootie Island—behind the gnarled wisdom tree of Saint Joe’s Elementary—and Father Leo made us hand-copy a communion hymn book full of song. Or when decades later, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, you brought your mother’s Holy Book of fairy tales to save me from damnation. Your act of charity did nothing but conjure true north winds, couldn’t keep old Leo from being busted on 8th Avenue, proclaiming his love to an undercover DT. It all left me wooden, wanting for expanded Coleridge, some embarrassed albatross to suffer for our sins.

Another Second Coming

From the other side

of her bedroom window,

she asks how long until the rapture

I answer springtime or after the fall

when doves die

We share a bottle of Beam,

wait for another Second Coming—

Zevon, and a dance with Carmelita

A maniacal moo-moo cow kicks

down the bedroom door,

ridden by Mary, holding her lamb

We all become driftwood in currents

of a hostile sea, saved only when Amphitrite

crest the waves like a perfect pearl

For years I stand on the shoreline,

she doesn’t answer my beck and call

Breakers roll like a great printing press

inking no words

Blank page

after blank page

Gravity

Some wayward detachment tries to change his providence by texting with Satan. Seeks true love—the kind you find spray-painted on overpasses, carved into bark—to modify his heart, heal his Lonely Avenue blues. And as sure as tides trust the moon’s gravity, loner-lover-boy is administered a lethal dose. Snuffed out as easily as an altar candle by a douter, his death since birth, finally full-circle. You whisper barrooms are the same as churches, and we should burn this fucking cathedral down. Pray to orange-night flames that scream into the sky and chase away any saints with disputed missions of duplicity. In my vision, we stride across the filthy tiled floor like Bonnie and Clyde, don faded brown leather jackets against the winds, jump on a two-stroke Harley, ride into a spectacular sinking sun.

BIO: William Teets, born in Peekskill, New York, has recently relocated to Southeast Michigan. He misses New York pizza, the Hudson River, and frequenting his old haunts, far from the impulses of any gods. Teets’ work has been published in numerous literary journals, including Ariel Chart, Drunk Monkeys, Nine Muses Review, Soundings East, and New Feathers Anthology. A collection of his poetry, After the Fall, was published by Cajun Mutt Press in February 2023. His second collection, Babylon Redux, will be published in September 2025 (Cajun Mutt Press).

five poems

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