The SWAMP REVIEW
Astral Body
by Dominic Pollio
With the end of the moon,
something invincible
brings lucidity, clarity.
Everything is dust but
some specks of dust means more to some.
You’re there with friends,
beside you,
even if you went away.
There’s a certain intangible beauty to it.
Indescribable.
Peace with calm.
Peace with few.
A calm washes over, short staccato breaths
before this celestial end.
Something impossible yet plausible from the beginning.
Time and space meld into one,
as everything collapses
Unity at the end.
The night air filled with finality.
Lit in moonlight of a collapsing moon.
Its chunks separating more and more as it slowly falls.
Broken by a stray comet.
Imagine,
time is stopped for but a moment
Near the old ents of oak and bark.
One final birdsong within.
Our final moments with the old and true.
A Fool
by Dominic Pollio
A Fool
Bedazzled in a green greatcoat. Outlined with black trim
Marches in line with his brothers, step by step
A Fool
Covered in wet black mud, sticky as tar, and blood
Kneels alone against a red moon
A Fool
Sings merrily, turning back the harshness of
Winter with song and joy
A Fool.
Alone. Wretched. Hopeless.
A Fool
eats a good cheer with his brothers, camping, a
nice charred oak fire, a red moon rising,
“We’ll be home soon, boys, victory is at hand!”
A Boy
Regrets time wasted and his last moment with his mother,
screaming, yelling.
A Fool
Sits, drinking, partying
A Boy
Signs up at a recruiting office
A Fool
Watched his brother die, a bayonet piercing
his coat like a spear through fruit,
He falls to his knees, intestines peeking out, feeling air for the first time
Silhouetted against a blood red moon
A Boy
is alone and dying, his wounds infected, blood and pus intermingling into a new liquid, any semblance of chivalry gone.
It’s not quick.
He lies there, his limbs unfeeling as storm clouds emerge
Rain falls, as the boy sinks, bubbles his last words to a dying world.
A Red Poppy
Rises from old bones upon green grass, looking towards a blood red moon.