Ryan Clark

Storms and Head Rises

Every year we watch a world blown away by storms.

We see lights shoot saw-teeth in the moving dark, wind dipping into earth whatever it
‌          carried in its manic swings, shed and grain left as lint huddled in a freshly
‌          exposed pocket of what has in a tornado come on unfamiliar.

We are confronted with damage in a fallen tree on a flattened house, another head rise
‌          on Red River wrapping its rust over cotton fields.

We go higher when the wagons tip over in the rushing water, high like animals
‌          into a hill alongside one another, river of gratitude for hands reaching out for us.

To recede is to reveal what we are afraid to lose.

Ryan Clark is obsessed with puns and writes his poems using a unique method of homophonic translation. He is the author of How I Pitched the First Curve (Lit Fest Press), and his poetry has recently appeared in Interim, Barzakh, DIAGRAM, and Fourteen Hills. Though he grew up in the Texoma region of Oklahoma and Texas, he currently teaches creative writing at Waldorf University in Iowa.