Shadowlands
by Sam Barbee
Logic cannot decipher my puzzle of grumbles.
Nightmares demand penance, so I inhale,
hoping shadows pay their own toll.
If not, search
for brighter vantage to recalculate the sum of daylight.
Stake my claim, pitch a tent, horizon in view
of a fresh start, sober do-over.
And if choices
prove wrong there, I will hike east to an expired
time zone, reenter hours before dawn’s
next breath rises, trussed, not fused.
***
Sam Barbee’s newest collection is titled Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), which was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. Also, Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag), which chronicles family travels throughout England. His poems have appeared recently in Poetry South, Salvation South, and upcoming in Cave Wall, among others; plus online journals Dead Mule School of Literature, American Diversity Report, Grand Little Things, Verse-Virtual, and Medusa’s Kitchen. He is a two-time Pushcart Nominee. He served as President of the Winston-Salem Writers, and also NC Poetry Society, and is one of the originators of the Poetry In Plain Sight — now in its thirteenth year — a poetry initiative to feature NC poets on broadside posters and display them in NC towns statewide.
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