Poems by Mather Schneider

FIRST HUNT

The first night I had my driver’s license

I drank a 6 pack and borrowed my mother’s car.

I turned the headlights on, backed out

and was about a half mile down the road

when I had a collision with a big deer.

He slid onto the hood as I hit the brakes

and when I skidded to a halt

he scrambled down and ran off,

leaving me with a broken light,

some blood on the paint, fur in the grill,

staring into the woods on a dark country road,

not a scrap of meat for my troubled mother.

MY GOTH GIRLFRIEND

In the cemetery shadows

she pushed me against somebody’s grandpa’s

grave stone,

knelt in the excelsior

of the pine mulch

and showed me

that god walked the earth.

Death’s rock etched my back

as I fought but

lost myself

into the wet velvet corridor

of her throat.

My balls howled and a dark angel

clung to my leg.

Slowly the moon pulled

itself back together.

Not fifty feet away

beyond the flimsy border

of bougainvillea

rushed the insane traffic

of lost souls.

 

I was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1970 and have lived in Tucson, Arizona for the past 14 years. I love it here, love the desert, love the Mexican culture (most of it), and I love the heat. I have one full-length book of poetry out called DROUGHT RESISTANT STRAIN by Interior Noise Press and another called HE TOOK A CAB from New York Quarterly Press. I have had over 500 poems and stories published since 1993 and I am currently working on a book of prose.

http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/mather...