1 Poem by Steve Vinson

View to a Sunset

The last step leads to a precipice

stops cold at the abyss at land’s end

where falling away air fills like an ocean

the void where clouds boil and froth in queasy motion

over the thrusting peaks and eroded mountains

littering the desert plain like pike and shield

like detritus of battles waged when the world began

in a war without warriors before fin and carapace.

Fires like funeral pyres break out at the edge

of sight glimpses of sunset on these strange seas without waters

where were once waters retreated now and dried to fossil layers.

fires burn as for lost heroes and for grieving daughters

for the millennia of pain eons passing in mere hours

viewed from this airy ledge.

An ochre wash descends to deep red then purple light

ebbs to black in stains of blood and endocrine

spilled through the spectrum in a deepening lens;

each day a braveing world dies in slow motion

descending unfathomed depths slower than evolution

until all colors converge into starless night.

Bionote

Steve Vinson teaches high school and community college English in El Paso, Texas. His MA thesis on Anne Sexton’s poetry evolved into a published article and book chapter in Rossetti to Sexton : Six Women Poets at Texas. He obtained his Ph.D. at New Mexico State University at the age of 54, and he has published a scattering of poems in scholarly journals and on web-poetry pages, including the DeKalb Literary Arts Journal and The Cynic Online Magazine. He is looking forward to retirement and time to write more poems.