A Poetry Showcase from Hiram Larew

Ireland

If you had been with me
I wouldn’t have wandered the orchard
I wouldn’t have mossed over these edges 
          or thought so much about the dead
I wouldn’t have savored the café’s rain 
  
         or stepped down into the stone ruins so eagerly
If you had gone with me
         the fuchsia shrubs wouldn’t have bloomed this red  
         and the bogs might not have glowed to amber.  
I love you but if you had come along
The stewed fish wouldn’t have sung to me
         this deeply with its harp

Well Born

When every day floats by 
          like smoothest cream 
          and all you’ve known are peaches  

When every day is cream or sunny days
          or languid sighs 
While others try as may

If ever day is ladled cream 
          or spoons to lick 
Then yes 
          what does someone else’s 
          curdled anger mean 

If Briefly

I’ve never wanted anything so much
        as roads to meander --
Gravel the better and dust through 
        some wandering summers 
Or weedy musk-melons like childhood 
       gone off on a ramble

I’ve never wanted anything as much 
        as that kind of lost

And how I love to visit door-to-door
          the memories made of ligustrum and rabbits
          or fences
          if even briefly

No I’ve really never wanted anything as much as
         porch rugs 
         and how my bare feet  
         traveled on them  
                  to distant cousins 
                  or dreams

So please as I reckon
         may I get one of three wishes 
        I’ve asked for --
                 to become vines hanging over
                 or to be a row of praying mailboxes
                 or wherever I go
                        to envy these springing 
                        whooping grasshoppers  
                        that leave me behind

Whiff

Open air is all my hearts
         its beckon shirts my days
What wildly loves in me 
        grows in clumps 
        or tufts in rain or ditches 
        and never fails

This open air is my every kiss
       as birds scoop straw that strays --
My out beyond 
          flies upside down

While side by side my simples wilt to grow
          and homes of home are made

Largest is my love in open air
        and steps to gathered chores 
                  are what I am --
These sacred swoops of nows-to-then 
      and my being made of twine 
      of twirls or hope embraced
      or dripping brims 
     of bucket-years that play

Bio: a blurb from Regie Cabrico, Larew's poems are psalms, driven by nature and memory, his language makes clouds gush and twigs listen to the chorus of trees. Larew's art is an abiding love for the earth and its man-made wonders: pyramids, bread, and barley swept brooms.  Larew is a seeker and seer of sentience: when all is lost, there are gentle hyperboles that give hope and illuminate the living and non-living with halos. Every poem in Mud Ajar is a tiny blessing, an invitation to embrace the sky, the perfect panacea to the unprecedented frenzy we've been engulfed by, enabling us to reflect upon our own unflinching resilience. Mud Ajar packs a wallop of truths by a skilled and unpretentious poet gifted to shower lyrical beauty upon you like holy water. 

Larew's poems have appeared recently in Poetry South, Contemporary American Voices, Honest Ulsterman and Iowa Review.  www.HiramLarewPoetry.com and www.PoetryXHunger.com


Larew's newest collection of poems, Mud Ajar, has recently been released 
by Atmosphere Press..  
www.HiramLarewPoetry.com