Wade German is the author of the poetry collections Dreams from a Black Nebula (Hippocampus Press, 2014), The Ladies of the Everlasting Lichen and Other Relics (Mount Abraxas Press, 2019)Â and the verse drama Children of Hypnos (Raphus Press, 2020). His poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies.
THE SLEEP OF THE CANNIBALS
Eerie sunlight scratches my window
With coppery nails
As the afternoon brings the sleep of the cannibals
Having eaten all morning long
In the web-like wings of translucent tissue
A breeze stirs my hair
The roads seep with dismal fog
And empty teeth are crowded with hunger
Trembling in icy gelatine
Quietly
As I creep along the balcony near dusk
Sponges fall from my pocket
Leaping from bright ledges of air
Into the wide-open mouth of my shadow below
Which follows me
In tatters of my former shadow
Beneath the umbrellas that shade all the sleepers
Drenched in ether of morphine
Turning to leather
As I approach the boundary
And begin to wonder
Night’s mantle covers the earth
By the blue lamps the receding footsteps
THE DISTANT STRANGERS
They come after dusk slowly as drifting waves of soot
Stained red by the setting sun
Across the papery hills enveloped in brine
Across the lake of eyes
As the village retreats from the distance
The houses folding softly in shadows of airless heat
Again
As they come from the colour of space
With claws of old sorcery
The savour of orange
And the long white hair of witches
Spreading downy wings on the pulsing grass
They come after dusk
When fair semblances return to the faint remoteness
From the margin going forwards
To the transmitting forest
With shabby green suits and muddy shoes
From the city of the dead
Crying vermilion
With the creatures of salt
Lifting out teeth from sections of unconsecrated ground
In flowery volume
Chosen by the windy chattering jaws
At crepuscular barriers
Many of them travel vast distances
From far fields of lavender
In stillness
That seems to be waiting for something
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