Poetry: Selections from Dan Provost

Isolation Without Jimi

Imprisoned--the

search for enlightenment glows

down into a truck-stop

                     shitter.

 

Confusing, trying to salvage

a former self; a longing to be

understood & loved...

 

A diamond cracks into dirty dust.

 

Trying to detail another

Bourbon secret.

 

Winter steps in--Jimi's bluster

offers a short jab to the side

of my face.

 

Car breaking down...Just two miles

from the woody shanty, where

 

I was prepared to start my old man isolation.

Mama

 

Remembered a crying

mother, kneeling in the

ocean…

 

Screams of anguish and fear,

trying to console a

world of hurt:

 

“We were the ones

       who wept over children—”

 

She muttered.

 

Demons kept marching.

 

Not listening.

With Apologies to the Son of God

 

Braids of

blood seep

out of my

thorny crown,

placed on my head

at the discretion of death—

 

I found

only I—had

the nerve to clamp

this royal salute, while

I breathed in

 

then out

 

Then was told by

no one in particular,

my pain of living

is somehow, subversive.

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 17 books/chapbooks. Finding Pessoa was released in October 2023 by Alien Buddha Press. Dan also has a collection of poems, All in a Pretty Little Row, published by Roadside Press which debuted in November 2023. His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net three times and has read his poetry throughout the United States. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.