PETER MAGLIOCCO

Peter

Magliocco

SPEAKING WITH THE MARTYR

So there was ascension into realms not hearing

whatever destiny of outcasts in city lights

mirrored the stigmatic offerings

of awareness in a sometimes vacuumed life

where I hear the voice of America crying,

circumambulating through atmospheres

with repetitions of subliminal speech-chatter

in the mystic dark of electrical storms

she who doubted religion’s light became

in her own right an awe-inspiring martyr

sojourning from icy palaces for the rich

collectors of human races unfolding

on some rising avatar’s altar of love

heat signatures were left in my psyche

declaiming exit strategies from grief

forming proverbs webbing on her skin

& on the slick canvas of her pimpled back

my fingers felt the scriptures integrating

as I nursed the logistics of her meaning

consigning a godly mandorla of rebirth

in one great pristine flight of infinite vowels

there were no final words for silent praying

THE AMBROSIA TREE

The aegis of sorcery is upon you

women waiting for a breath of fire

in long cold auguries of thought

implanted eggs of beauty crack

from undercurrents rising fast

in a bloom of harbingers growing

as forests of the dulcimer moment burn

your old self melding into kinder earth

for seeds of salvation’s reborn tree

roots of the opaque ruling realm

I build like parapets these memories

swirling the ambrosia cocktail

I sip like natural holy water

until the sweet transcendental wave overcomes

time’s lingering abandon

I  read the book of godly minds tonight

in your grove now the love root lengthens

into heavens of earthly design

THE MEADOW’S MIRROR

In the dew-spittle clinging to fallen lips

my vision sculpted mountains green

& shimmering in summer auras,

before damp rainfall became a sweat

spiraling on the contour of your hips

I sought the image water mirrored.

The sudden rough currents displayed you

settling under the bright sky’s canopy

in a cream-stained aura shrouding

the fiery-red sun’s slow leaving.

A man like ageless death, I sought only

the stillness pooling with the leaves

in the meadow’s unmarred center,

not known to any bones of trespassers

or the beasts lost to evolutionary gaps

sowing the secret species of that being

our flesh & blood would soon sanctify,

there, in mind-entombed memories yet

preserving humanity’s unearthly faults.

PETER MAGLIOCCO

PETER MAGLIOCCO writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he’s been active in the small press as editor, writer, and artist for many years. A multiple nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he has recent poetry at Poets Pulp Press, Poetic Diversity, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Literary Yard, and elsewhere. His latest poetry book is Poems for the Downtrodden Millennium from The Medulla Review Publishing.