Poet: J.A. Tyler, Fort Collins, CO
Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #7: J.A. Tyler, Fort Collins, CO
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Variations of a Brother War ( Liquor Triptych )
Miller Cries of His Father
There was a father who went. The oaks were tall and wind
blown. Fathers went. Miller’s father went. The river moved.
Miller’s father did not say goodbye. Miller’s father waved
from a distance. Miller’s father waved from the sun. Miller’s
father shot his rifle into the ground and it made the tiniest
tunnel down into the earth. Miller crawled into the tunnel.
Miller made that tunnel his home. He set lamps and bedded
down in its dirt blankets, waited for a hint of welcome or a
mouthful of worms. A father never coming back. All the bottles
emptied of themselves.
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Gideon Strokes a Growing Beard
For Gideon, his father was a fire. His father was roasted.
Gideon smelled the plank of birds in trees that he might or
might not be able to hit with a swig of gunpowder and a stack of
bullets. For Gideon, Eliza had arms that took away father-
loss, that gathered him in an envelope of forest, a shy dimming
of wreckage. Gideon’s father did not say goodbye but a bottle
lifted says Hello. Gideon says hello to Eliza and his mouth is a
tilted-up bottle-neck. Gideon weeps at her stoop, her knees, and
the clouds cover a drunken jaundiced moon.
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Eliza Sees Two Men Drunk
When Miller attempted to break Gideon’s jaw, Eliza stood on
the road, mud beneath her boots even up on the horse she rode.
Gideon strong and not easily taken, Miller like an overcoat in
sun, weakened by the leaded-suit of moon shining through him.
When Gideon drinks he is more powerful, and when Eliza nears
she can see in them their father, the man who fought his
brothers in a war without end. Mud burbles in Miller’s knocked
down mouth, Gideon stopped before the bones broke. And Eliza
wearing a ribbon in her hair that has flattened in this rain.
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J. A. Tyler is the author of ten books: Inconceivable Wilson (Scrambler Books, 2009), Sinatra (Vox Press, 2010), In Love With a Ghost (Cow Heavy, 2010), A Man of Glass & All The Ways We Have Failed (Fugue State Press, 2011), No One Told Me I Would Disappear with John Dermot Woods (Jaded Ibis Press, 2011), A Shiny, Unused Heart (Black Coffee Press, 2011), Girl With Oars & Man Dying (Aqueous Books, 2011), Wilson (Re)-Conceived (Scrambler Books, 2011), When We Hold Our Hands (Dark Sky Books, 2012), & The Zoo, A Going (Dzanc Books, 2013).
He is also founding editor of Mud Luscious Press, based out of Fort Collins, Colorado.
To read more about J.A. Tyler and Mud Luscious Press, visit: www.mudlusciouspress.com.