Detonation

R. J. Keeler

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781725257047, 9781725257054
• eBook ISBN: 9781725257061
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Religious Poetry
• Index: Literature

Mr. Keeler began writing in 1970 under the direction of Guy Owen. Detonation, his first book of poetry, contains poems from over thirty years of writing. His eclectic style ranges over traditional forms (sonnets, villanelles, sestinas) to less formal arrangements, and in content from science to silliness to love and death. His writing tends to be distinct from many academic or MFA writers, for whom he has a mild disdain. Mr. Keeler has been published in over sixty literary journals and has won (or been named a finalist in) several contests and awards. He is currently completing the set of poems for his second book of poetry.Mr. Keeler currently lives on Vashon Island, Washington. He is a minor Luddite, thus can only be can be contacted by email at [email protected].

First Part: Love, et al.

Carthage, a Salted Plain

When he came out of me, he took most of my heart.

Fresh, he tore it loose from its mooring.

His broadside cannonade in flight formed

Cupid’s harpoon.

Rammed it into my belly.

Drew me gently back alongside.

Stripped away my innocence in layered spirals.

His dreams bloodied my pelt.

I recall now my sister’s oldest name.

Minotaur at My Door

—After Picasso’s Guernica

I am not afraid, although perhaps I should be:

a killer is loose, hungry for yet another virgin,

and I—not untouched, but still somewhat intact;

a bull in heat dreams only of labia and labyrinths.

A Minotaur at my door, hungry for a third virgin,

but boxed in—neutered by luscious, high hedgerows.

When old, he shall always dream of softer labyrinths.

But was I, still a maiden, led into one once? Unclear.

Lonely, hungry, condemned to death—first a hedgerow,

then a cinder path, then low bellowing ‘round a corner—

a shock: I‘m here to see—whom? Will he be—clear?

Now a knock at my door—OK, here, take my daughter.

A bloody patch, hot bellowing behind the next corner;

I, way in the past, immaculate. Or—ah, vaguely virginal?

Damn bull’s knocking! Oh, my daughter’s not a virgin?

Not much of me left down there, so no fear. Or, should I?

A Shark Is Not

a considerate lover.

Once established, it follows: no shark is an island either.

A shark is not bidden by circumference, but by diameter.

Not tacit; indeed, a shark is wholly inclusive by nature.

Not unprovable, not incomplete; no shark, however algebraic, suits God’s exemplar.

No shark discounts the Marlboro Man’s allure.

Whether a shark is pristine or not remains undecidable, but this much is clear: a shark exacts stature.

A shark is neither robot nor bottom-feeder nor agent nor volunteer.

A shark is a matter of kind, not degree.

A shark in the parlor presupposes...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• First Part: Love, et al.
• Second Part: Death
• Third Part: Literature
• Fourth Part: Everything Else