Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Warriors with Wings, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky and she has four Best of the Net nominations.
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***
White Heat
This dry moment
we lay in sweat beds.
Limp flowers turned
into themselves.
Lightning scorches
skies with hot zigzags.
Will it ever rain, when
will cicadas be silent?
Memories of a white room
burning pains…shunts, stains.
A bottle bursts filling the
sidewalk with rancid beer.
Throat of bird
swollen, screaming.
***
Nightscape
Fog horns sound though
air soaked in blackness.
All evening long listening
to hiss of trucks, cars.
Shadows brush across walls
as trees trace their branches.
Gathering and waving
together then swaying apart.
While I sleep, stars glide
through heaven making
their appointed rounds in
ancient sacred procession.
Dreams as smooth as rose
petals spill into my mind
growing wild patches in
this dark garden of night.
***
"A" train
brassy blue
electric
close eyes
watch points
like stars
think now
how insignificant
compared to train
speaking for itself
stars known
in no language
burn shoot
thru
tiger's eyes
brain in
constant action
reaction
to what we do not know
plans of distant stars
galaxies floating as
"A" train
silver worm
slides under
big belly
of city