Seriously Funny
{A Bumbershoot Special Feature}


Rick Marlatt

teaches English in Nebraska. He has BAs in English and Philosophy and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska, and he’s currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside at Palm Desert.

Among his credits are Blue House, Slow Trains, Language and Culture, The Reynolds Review, and The Carillon.

Marlatt performs prolifically, most recently as the featured poet at the Nebraska State Reading Association annual conference this spring.


—Back to Bumbershoot Contents—

Nebraska Morning

This morning the world is breaking its fast
as I dump sausage grease onto the lovegrass.

To the east sunrise bleeds golden yolk onto
blue sky skillets, and sycamore limbs finger

themselves outward like bacon strips to
cubescent clouds of fluffy white biscuits.

Eager chickadees and warblers dance
around the brim of a tall glass of cold cedar.

I’m more like the barn swallow who peeks
out from elm blankets heavy with dew

through eyes obsidian—just beginning to percolate,
and shakes the good long sleep from veined feathers

letting the new day come easy and slow
like the lovegrass sizzle of sausage grease.



 
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