June 2016
Laurie Byro
philbop@warwick.net
philbop@warwick.net
In 1985, while pursuing a business degree, I unhappily landed in a creative writing class and announced to the group that I thought Walt Whitman was a chain of schools throughout the United States. To my astonishment, I had found my pacing, abandoned prose, and started a poetry circle that has been meeting for 16 years. I recently published a full length book, “Luna.” through Aldrich Press and “Gertrude Stein’s Salon and Other Legends” through Blue Horse Press, thanks to Tobi and Jeff Alfier. I am the Poet in Residence at the West Milford Township Library and despite it all, love New Jersey, and have lived here almost 60 years.
Living in the Body of a Horsefly
Haematopota pluvialis
Some call me common, yet I recall those who did more than
chew on the skin of their rivals, the ones who became greater
than an irritant lapping another poet’s blood. I have been around
a while. My uncles in the past had lineage, not to be sexist, aunts
too, yet the Uncles who raced on the rumps of the chariots,
whose lives were driven short by the whip with their dizzy
bursts of glory as they watched the dolphin counters, knowing
their mere participation could change the course of history.
Not to be a name dropper, but my family lived in the stables
of the Lord and Lady of Coventry. In fact, it was “Tom” her groom,
who invited us to stay, and we took the utmost care never
to mar her skin, what a beauty she was, so kind. The vulgars
gossiped she was hot to trot, who would blame her, given
that stingy galoot she married. Our family members
had stellar careers. My immediate situation, however,
was a step down, not a leg up. Some rogues stowed
on the Mayflower; we Loyalists chose to propagate Jolly Olde.
Racing was permanently in our blood. King George VI Weekend
remains a highlight for us each Summer. Call me traditional,
but that sense of duty, and of course family nagged us
throughout the centuries. Legends have passed down from the first
time Great Aunt Margaret heard them in that old-world stable.
Those were divine times, (circumstances that we were cautioned
to keep silent about). Yet, repeated by a man who liked men
(and sometimes women) who with the heady ghosts of my elders
was never common: “whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d.”
-from Gertrtude Stein’s Salon and Other Legends
Living in the Body of a Horsefly
Haematopota pluvialis
Some call me common, yet I recall those who did more than
chew on the skin of their rivals, the ones who became greater
than an irritant lapping another poet’s blood. I have been around
a while. My uncles in the past had lineage, not to be sexist, aunts
too, yet the Uncles who raced on the rumps of the chariots,
whose lives were driven short by the whip with their dizzy
bursts of glory as they watched the dolphin counters, knowing
their mere participation could change the course of history.
Not to be a name dropper, but my family lived in the stables
of the Lord and Lady of Coventry. In fact, it was “Tom” her groom,
who invited us to stay, and we took the utmost care never
to mar her skin, what a beauty she was, so kind. The vulgars
gossiped she was hot to trot, who would blame her, given
that stingy galoot she married. Our family members
had stellar careers. My immediate situation, however,
was a step down, not a leg up. Some rogues stowed
on the Mayflower; we Loyalists chose to propagate Jolly Olde.
Racing was permanently in our blood. King George VI Weekend
remains a highlight for us each Summer. Call me traditional,
but that sense of duty, and of course family nagged us
throughout the centuries. Legends have passed down from the first
time Great Aunt Margaret heard them in that old-world stable.
Those were divine times, (circumstances that we were cautioned
to keep silent about). Yet, repeated by a man who liked men
(and sometimes women) who with the heady ghosts of my elders
was never common: “whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d.”
-from Gertrtude Stein’s Salon and Other Legends
©2016 Laurie Byro
