Terrell Jamal Terry

Manifold Evocations IV


Lure of bismuth. How sharp is the rain?
How eternal is death to the dead?

When you click on me I turn golden.
It’s almost too much peace—

Your melody stretched out on the bed,
Like a wand of water to admire.

I wake to light & glass.
I see a room colored with red clothes.

When that is what you are,
That’s what you are without knowing.

This is how I might keep my mind together:
Close my eyes & see the words.

 

Manifold Evocations XI


Intrigue is oblivious. I’ll read to death,
Balanced by plums in the palm, beets & silk.

A moment to not drown under instinct.
Maybe we start at confusion.

Allow me to reach out to change—
I’m sort of a serious mantis

Under a ceiling of leaves stopping light.
My breathing needs room.

There should be a secret river
Sleeping through me. I can’t easily accept

A few powerful visions making decisions,
Violating too many lives.

Terrell Jamal Terry is the author of Aroma Truce, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, Green Mountains Review, West Branch, The Journal, and elsewhere. He resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 
 

More from Vol. 34, Issue 2