GREGORY E. LUCAS - POEMS

Gregory E. Lucas writes fiction and poetry.  His short stories and poems have appeared in many magazines such as The Horror Zine, The Ekphrastic Review, Ekphrasis, Yellow Mama, and in a previous issue of Scarlet Leaf.

The Fox Hunt
​

(Inspired by the Winslow Homer painting, The Fox Hunt, 1893, oil on canvas.)
 
Ravenous, shrieking, their glossy wings spread wide,
and starved to madness by the winter’s fury,
two crows prey upon a fox, veer and dive.
 
With thunderous beats, they spin, almost collide
above a stark, snow-covered field by the sea.
Ravenous, shrieking, their glossy wings spread wide,
 
the crows must kill in order to survive.
With little else in view to eat but berries,
the crows who prey upon the fox veer, dive.
 
The fox looks every way. No place to hide.
Such danger as this the fox could not foresee,
while ravenous, shrieking, their wings spread wide,
 
the crows, determined not to be denied
another meal, hover above their quarry.
The crows who prey on a fox, veer and dive
 
as a gull perched on a nearby rock cries.
But is it too late for the hunted fox to flee?
Ravenous, shrieking, their glossy wings spread wide,
two crows who prey on a fox veer, then dive.
 
 

The Mermaid’s Villanelle
​

​(Inspired by The Mermaid, an oil painting by Howard Pyle, 1910, American.)
 
 
“Beneath the waves the sweetest love is made.
Into my arms, descend, discover bliss.”  
Upon a summer night, she sings -- the mermaid.
 
“Soft as the wind, soft as a serenade,
Soft as my parted lips will be each kiss
Beneath the waves while sweetest love is made.
 
“See how the moon upon the ocean paved
For you a sparkling road? Come, follow this.”
Upon a summer night, she sings -- the mermaid.
 
“With me you have no need to feel afraid,
So, let us embrace in the sea’s abyss.
Beneath the waves the sweetest love is made.
 
“For promise of such passion men would trade
Life for death. And what dreams -- to reminisce
Upon this summer night!” she sings, -- the mermaid.
 
“Upon my naked breast let your head be laid
My love. To resist my charms is senseless.
Beneath the waves the sweetest love is made
On a summer night.”  She sings -- the mermaid.
 
 

Brook Watson and the Shark
​

(Inspired by John Singleton Copley’s oil painting Watson and the Shark 1778, American.)

​Too late they’ve come to save his foot and calf:
A shark with tiger eyes and teeth of horror
Lunges to bite the naked boy in half
Who bleeds and thrashes in Havana Harbor.
His rescuers -- a frantic crew of nine --
Have sped their small brown craft into the fray.
A desperate black man stands, throws out a line,
And two young men out of the boat halfway,
Stretching their arms too far to save their friend,
Are grabed by a shouting man before they spill
Into the sea. Unable to bear the end,
Some cringe. On the bow one lifts a gaff. “Kill
It now,” all yell, and Watson thinks this breath’s
His last, but -- (splash) -- the monster reels in death.

While Holding a Banana 
​

​. . . soft as the lips I kiss in memories . . .
yellow, like her hair,
hair my fingers combed . . .
the peel’s brown spots, like freckles
that weeks of summer sun
by a glittering bay bestowed on her . . .
riper than the last ones we ate a decade back:
we sit together, tears falling
as we eat our buckwheat pancakes,
bananas heaped on the cooled grain, and we’re
not sure who needs help the most.
You or I?
Plates clatter. We lift forks
with hands that tremble,
and though it’s hard
to swallow the truth, we try.
A lone gull’s wail
as it pecks among pebbles
echoes in the solitary nights that lie ahead.
So much we’d say -- forever left unsaid.