Poems

by David P. Gontar (August 2021)

 The Atheist Viewing the Dead Body of His Wife, A. B. Clayton, 

To My Atheist

It’s simple
When you’re dead you’re dead
Unless you’re better read
And know the empty state you contemplate
Is a me that cannot be

The Bug

I saw a bug upon the ground
Heaving silent body bound
Heedless of the destiny it served
Dim procession five limbs made
The sixth bled brown
When I beheld the vision of the blind

Unforever

Unforever smite the drum
Still the drunken glade
leave befallen rush and reign
let jealousy be jade

In a box to wander
Unpeopled through charred skies
Naught but all be hidden
Revelation wry

Sunday Song

There was a song to sing then
When o’ Sunday there were birds’ bright words
Wings that noticed us more than we them
Each a stem to grow

If you dug dark dens beneath black wings,
Beyond what knew the birds would come
A Sunday calm and fed the sky,
The earth as rich as cake that spake
Our tongue of curd, o’ Sunday down
When in our nightstar way we knew
White shadows, merde and sperm
A song rose up in sodden birth
                                       —and heard

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David Gontar has been writing for New English Review since 2011. Through New English Review Press he has brought out two books on Shakespeare. David is now retired, living abroad and teaching English.

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