| This poem by Jim Corner was included in the honorable mentions of the InterBoard Poetry competition of April 2004. Corner is a graduate of the Joplin High School Class of 1951 that had its 55th reunion September 2006.
He recieved his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Tulsa, after majoring in English, philosophy, and sociology. An ardent student of contemporary theology, he has served in five churches in Oklahoma, including the First Christian of Church of Oklahoma City (Church of Tomorrow) as youth minister and director of the William H. "Bill" Alexander Center.
He publishes the Desert Moon Review which he considers the premium online poetry workshop in Arizona. Currently he is self-publishing a book, My Life in Seven Seconds, A Collection of Poems. Corner now lives in Mesa, AZ.
NOIR
by Jim Corner
(Desert Moon Review)
Upstairs, a paneless window
faced the lawn toward the gravel road.
Elm shadows taunted the room
in the half-light. Corners strewn
with newspapers, clothes stiffening
in the dust, never worn.
In the woods behind the barn,
where Jack was put in the moon
for burning brush piles on Sunday,
a rain crow cooed a warning
of showers on this sticky summer day.
The field beyond, where the Progfeld boys
chased me home.
Dingy tents, patched with denim
and magenta tape, the berry pickers,
gypsies, roaming the farmland.
What magic spun within the walls,
cast upon us by night?
The wasp stinger I found on the sill,
still alive, stung my finger. Beside
it, the mysterious skin, wrinkled
and wet. Father said it was a beetle’s
shelter shed just after its mating.
My reoccurring dream of the Eddy Bridge,
white locomotive steam so volatile to face,
yet intermittently cleared. What was under
the bridge? I remember; strange, Mom does not.
I laid on a quilt of patched wool and velvet
near the window, beside me a girl of five;
night train rattled the pane, shook
the wall, passed into the planet’s shadow.
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