What Poems
By Colin Gilbert


painted across the new face of man
awakening from unlearned sleep

bled between shackle and wrist

from fire to dark


cut from the final yarn of earth
where mercury confides with sun

stained by water upon levies

in the growing stench of death

forgotten begging to be written
to touch the page

tasted by children’s fingers
screamed from the pullbacks of whips

whispered between my eyes and your face
my lips and your name


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I am the current Editor of Lamplighter Review and, in addition to winning the 2006 Chicago State University Hughes, Diop, Knight Literary Award, I have poems appearing in recent or upcoming editions of Pedestal Magazine, Matrix, Minglewood, Plain Spoke, Gloom Cupboard, CC & D and Cantaraville.