Mark Kessinger
Barren Darkness
this night the stones hand
their invisible noises
to each other.
Nothing louder than
a skittering,
nothing bigger than
the final flap
just before the talons
clutch their
target.
You'd think that you could hear
the sky crawl the ground
but it is just wind seep
each morning blue canvas
fails to match
the night before
the rocks show
no scrap marks, no torn pieces
stuck to the barrels of bristles,
or the thorns of sotal.
This could be the
home of the shipwrecks
of dreams
a trophy case of
wasted times
a waiting room
for sunburns.
Little else.
Mark Kessinger lives and writes in the Houston area. He is the author of two collections of poetry, The Exploded View and The Book of Joe. "The Barren Darkness" is his 118th published piece and comes from the Nevada manuscript. He has also written "The Cone of Certainty" about living through Hurricane Harvey. In addition to his poetry, he is the author of Creatures Dead, a novel. His website is amazon.com/author/mark-kessinger