Max Blagg

Dawn Patrol

Lord I am risen from that misery and I wait for you
Like the sleepless man waits for dawn
The light was up at 5.45 am and I rose to meet it
first hours of the day filled with rain
lightning over Montauk something
sticking in the craw, reading the seeds in the burst
throat of the blackbird on the road, sunflower seeds.
Ken Kesey planted sunflowers by filling shotgun
cartridges with seed and firing into the muddy banks
that surrounded his house in la Honda
somewhere north of Big Sur where once we
wandered more like refugees than literary pilgrims.
I wait for you like the poor man waits for shekels
to rain from the sky instead of frogs and snakes,
familiar musculature, grazed anatomy
stirring pits and seeds power streaming
through the morning like that sunlight
crossed the floorboards close
to the wonder and the wonder.
Read the psalms as the dog curled into me
and the night was cool again,
everything bearable everything
in the palm of my hand, finger on the trigger
chakras loaded like shells along my spine.

–Max Blagg

Poetry