BIO
Jared Pearce teaches writing and literature at William Penn University. His poems have recently been or will soon be shared in Glass Kite, Infinity’s Kitchen, Gyroscope, DIAGRAM, and Fieldstone Review.
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Your Love is Just a Dream
Her tail feathers pinned in, a step
Or two, like a starling, then the bob,
A quick hop, a stop, like a robin.
She titmouse twitches her neck
To see I might lay down
My tender tread. She spikes
Her seed and fans. She gathers her air
And gashes the grey.
I’m waiting to see from where
Her chirp will break on me,
The tuft of her breast like the heart
Of the tree. I’m wanting to be her
Bath, her breeze, hoping her legs will rest
Her nest and truth on me.
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Beneath the Sunshine
for Soren
There he goes, banging away on his cheap guitar,
Hammering the pop songs he hurts for, the air barely
Strong enough to hang onto him, his thrumming
Heartbeat crashing walls and windows and ears.
Whenever he picks it up, the whole world goes
New: he uses his eyes and fingers and voice to poke
Pin-points of sound in the planet and whole
Universes come pouring through.
He’s not dreaming of a crowded arena, maniac
Kids tearing his jacket, or inventing himself a colossus
Whose style and skill crumble across a century.
He’s us again, a kid getting lost in his exploration
Of a mapped world, beginning what has always happened
And pursuing the very thing that brings us back.
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Dream Dream Well
She pulled on his ghost
A brown coat, a green tie,
And made him stand in line
For a photograph. Most
Of us thought it was nuts,
This worrying over the past,
But her hope held fast
Until his grey face stayed put.
I stood next to him, watching
Her hover, her focused
Egg rolling then hatching
That boy from her stifled heart.
I was jealous of her art,
Of her gritty hocus pocus.
*****
