Three Poets: Four New Poems

An interesting selection of new poetry for you now from Wesley Gray, Mary Soon Lee, and Herb Kauderer – everything from Imperial China to Doomsday Clocks by way of Charles Darwin!


​23:59:57
by Wesley D. Gray

Tick tock tick tock purrs the Doomsday Clock.
Gears turn, we're about to chime.
Twenty-three fifty-nine – time to shine.

Three seconds to go in this final hour.
Two seconds to live your life.
One second to be forgotten.


* Wesley D. Gray is the author of Come Fly with Death: Poems Inspired by the Artwork of Zdzislaw Beksinski available now. Visit http://WesDGray.com


THE IMPERIAL WAR: ONSET
by Mary Soon Lee

King Xau's declaration of war
sped by pigeon and courier:
a day to signal his border posts,
two days to alert his nearest ally,
three days to notify his enemy.

That enemy, the Emperor Tahj, 
feasting on figs soaked in syrup,
bespoke the beast who shared
his thoughts; the beast bespoke
their aides, spies, puppets.

Before Tahj finished his dessert,
before he licked his fingers
and lounged back on his throne,
his orders made known
across two thousand miles.


* Mary Soon Lee grew up in London, but now lives in Pittsburgh. She won the 2014 Rhysling Award for best long poem for Interregnum.


The Ways of Murphy
by Herb Kauderer
 
Overconfident
he punched a black cat
& threw a horseshoe
through an antique mirror.
 
Then he burst in on the villain
somehow forgetting
as they always do
that Murphy keeps

a falling anvil in reserve.
​

Darwin’s Nightmare
by Herb Kauderer
 
The peacock’s tail
drove Darwin to the edge
of a breakdown because,
like most men,
he did not understand

what attracts women.


* Herb Kauderer is an associate professor of English at Hilbert College and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in Vermont. He is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Snowstorm of '14: Poems from the Front Lines. More about his writing can be found at http://HerbKauderer.com