Sean Lause
Sean Lause is a professor of English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio. His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Beloit Poetry Journal and Illuminations. His latest book of poems is Midwest Theodicy (Taj Mahal Review, 2019).
Inheritance
In the back of my grandmother’s antique store
I overhear my grandfather chanting:
“I don’t want to die. I’m afraid to die,”
and my grandmother soothes him, “I know, I know.”
And she opens, opens doors, drapes, blinds and windows,
and old glass lights in carillon colors,
and still he cries his fear of dying.
But I am five and the watches are sleeping.
Clocks line the walls, each hushed at a separate hour,
and yet this store is a theater of light,
crystal air, tobacco scents, and hard-bound
books clasping their secret knowledge.
And now her hands guide me to the garden,
and I am all lit crystal and sun,
as the world rehearses another day,
and the light stings like shattered glass,
and broken strings are blowing in the trees.
The Gospel According to the Blob
That idiot farmer
was every scientist who ever lived.
There is a Gospel According to the Blob.
First rule: “Don’t poke me with a fucking
stick. I will eat you up.”
Christians separate angels
from monsters.
But the Gospel According to the Blob
states otherwise: “Monsters, angels and
poets—all are messengers of apocalypse.”
Also, Blobs and poets
both hate the cold,
are warm-hearted creatures
who enjoy a good audience
and always make the show.
Gospel: “Thou shalt not
exclude the monster.”
The E has been forgotten,
but monsters remember all.
I am all your histories,
your tanks, your bazookas,
your flame-throwers—ha!
So listen to the poet as I
swallow him whole,
while he sings his fate, and your own.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 