Bruce E. Whitacre
When the Ground Drops Away Beneath Me, Where Do I Turn?
The message is the blade, the life-ending exhale.
Time buckles the floor. Mind leaps from body.
Afloat, ethereal, free fall, sky eye,
Gripless, groundless, life swerves yet you land.
Time buckles the floor. Mind leaps from body.
Here’s a new country, before, after new language:
gripless, groundless. Life swerves yet you land
open-mouthed to new air, tongue to new words.
Here’s a new country, before/after, new language.
Unfreeze, move through the ache.
Open your mouth to new air, tongue to a new word.
Eat grief to landslide forward, stones your new food.
Unfreeze your moves, speak love through the ache.
Afloat, ethereal, free falling sky eye
Eat grief to fuel the way forward, stones your new food.
The message is the blade, the lifesaving inhale.
Bruce E. Whitacre is the author of Good Housekeeping (Poets Wear Prada, 2024) and The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks (Crown Rock Media, 2022). His poems have appeared in World Literature Today, Amethyst Review, Kearney Creates, Dear Booze, Pine Hills Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies. Whitacre holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. A Nebraska native and a retired theatre executive, he lives in Forest Hills, Queens with his husband.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
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Pit-of-the-stomach poem.
I like what Myra says so well in the comments above. The movement through the ache, with the ache, despite the ache; alongside the presence of the blade: I feel it. That blade. Visceral. Powerful.