darren demaree
Got There: Wading Naked
Everything was clear
when I was a body moving
with no other bodies.
I found belief in building
something sustainable so that
I could sustain elsewhere.
All my morning songs
were aggressive. I liked that
about me, my strong hope.
I took those flashes of joy
with the blood in the snow
& the late summer odes
& let the melodrama cook
in the plastic wrapper
we’ve gifted to everything.
Be after midnight with me.
Decom(poses)
it was always
an alternative
to the photos
that held us
together too well
i kept moving
until the first four
books of my life
became spectrums
the light held
apart from me
then i aged
with the humor
that is not all loss
one kept promise
a warning
to the world
that i could
exist in echoes
that i was an echo
that i was given
just enough time
to carve my body
loose from the cliffside
did you see me no
did you claim me no
that splash though
Darren’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently 'So Much More' (November 2024, Harbor Editions). He is the Editor in Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living and writing in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.