<div class="line">Today is the day of finishing little tasks.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">The words of his body locked in a stroke</div>
<div class="line">the doctors can’t edit.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line2">*   *   *</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">He walks through the brown field</div>
<div class="line">in Vietnam, the ambush,</div>
<div class="line">agent orange pedals in the sweat.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">The nurse spoons in pureed beets,</div>
<div class="line">wipes his mouth, elevates the dead hand</div>
<div class="line">that was filled with fire.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line2">*   *   *</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">He held my wings in one hand,</div>
<div class="line">the scissors in the other</div>
<div class="line">and after the clip I beat my wings</div>
<div class="line">so much harder to fly.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">He steers my face’s pale fire</div>
<div class="line">from the psychiatrist to the hospital,</div>
<div class="line">the stomach pump, the in-patient.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">He says,</div>
<div class="line"><i>whoever you become now,</i></div>
<div class="line"><i>I will love him.</i></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line2">*   *   *</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">And father, people have begun</div>
<div class="line">to love my words, chewed so hard</div>
<div class="line">in your mouth, fed into mine.</div>


Father Son Haiku

A Little Sermon

My Beautiful Father the Fire Bird

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">You make a girl want you, she said<br />
and pummeled my stomach like a boxer<br />
hammers a speedball,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">smacked my face side-to-side<br />
like opponents volleying a shuttle cock,<br />
then kissed me.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">My chest was a mat in her hand<br />
as she clipped a blue bobby pin on it,<br />
then wrestled it off with her nose.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Her legs squeezed like polo mallets<br />
quarreling over the ball.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">She blinked like a catcher’s mitt,<br />
clapped like the crowd<br />
and I rested in the dugout of her lap.</p>


Tornado Alley

The Things That Mother Said

Her Sports Game

<div class="line">a mansion</div>
<div class="line">inside a hovel</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">an elephant</div>
<div class="line">trapped in a swallow</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">the claw at the end</div>
<div class="line">of a roar</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">a knob</div>
<div class="line">without a door</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/GossleeLife.mp3"></audio></figure>

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January 19, 2013Portrait of an Inner LifeJohn Gosslee

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January 19, 2013Portrait of an Inner LifeJohn Gosslee

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My Beautiful Father the Fire Bird by John Gosslee

Her Sports Game by John Gosslee