by Brian Volck | Apr 26, 2014 | Food, poetry
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Sacraments (Thank you, Andre Dubus.) School lunchboxes rarely return empty, unearthed from backpacks burdened with bruised fruit, limp crusts – the lingering refuse of schoolroom trades. Were it food alone they grew on, my children would wither...
by Brian Volck | Apr 19, 2014 | liberation, poetry, Uncategorized
Having Crossed the Sea (Exodus 15) I have seen them, dead along the shore, their bloated faces still ripe with hate. And there was one I stopped at to kick— kick him fiercely and hard in the face the way they kicked my now dead husband who wept at making bricks...
by Brian Volck | Mar 11, 2014 | poetry
Listen to a reading of this poem here Sorrel Soup Snip two handsful of spring-burst acid leaves, sorrow-weary hearts green as mossy headstones. Slice them thin as battered hope. Confetti these ribbons in simmering water not so salty as tears, where earthy vegetables –...
by Brian Volck | Jan 10, 2014 | art, poetry
Listen to this poem here In Winter January’s sun is snared, bled of color, in black hackberry branches, alive with robin wings. In summer so solitary, they now flock to feast on raisined fruits, darker than their rust-red bellies or the lean fox padding the...
by Brian Volck | Mar 27, 2013 | kenosis, liberation, poetry
For Pesach and Holy Week, an older poem of mine, engaging the great festivals in a slantwise way: Francis and the Leper (for Richard Rohr) They both stank (it was not a time obsessed with odorlessness). Doubtless both were frightened: the God-besotted penitent...
