John Byrne
lives with his wife (an artist), their daughter and an adopted six-toed cat in Albany, Oregon.
He writes formal verse, short stories, and puppet plays.
Some of his work has appeared recently in Lucid Rhythms, The Lyric, Sunken Lines and Stringtown Magazine.
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Lamentation at the Small River Cemetery in the Chinese Desert
(an archeological site)
Exploding light, rough grasping hands
Smashed forty silent centuries,
Destroying all that had been planned,
The clothes, the slaves, the jewelry
Intended for my journey home.
Not gods, but giant, loathsome men
Pried all protecting boats away,
Then stole what had been left me when
This mound was sealed to stay that way
Until my journey home.
All outside they have rendered sand
Where once was green, where rivers flowed,
Where gardens heeded gods’ commands:
All desert, now, where nothing grows
To help the journey home.
They’ve crushed the sacred texts to dust,
They’ve marked and scattered all my bones.
The journey god in whom I trust
Won’t find my spirit when he comes
To lead his daughter home.
I curse these men, their thieving ways,
I curse their gods, their families.
May they find out at end of days
That they are barred as they’ve barred me
From any journey home.
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