Rod Moore

Two poems from Rod Moore’s Hole and Ghost

followed by a note on the author

Utah Death Trip

I remember the delicate
trees, the ones Dad called
quaker aspens, while his
hands draped lazy on the
wheel, tires soft as hands
on the canyon asphalt.

All this before the time
of marvelous unraveling.
So far only the vagaries of
adolescence. Once when
I woke up and looked out
the car window, I saw a
screech owl pivot its
head to watch us pass.

In his mind we might have
seemed fairly integral.
But we were also, to him,
the nameable animals
we’d be until torn apart.

 

Rod Moore

 

All Consuming

All photos of me in my youth look like children’s
drawings. Stick-out ears, arms thin as wooden
dowels, thick glasses, Beatles haircut, Dracula mouth.

Time softly twines with time. Every second I’m
here counts against the ones when I wasn’t. One
girl was disgusted by the saliva in my kisses.

Graveyards and peacocks are viewed as complementary.
More recent markers have color photos set in cement.
Hardened, I can look them in the eye.

 

Rod Moore

 

Rod Val Moore has published short stories in a variety of journals. In 1994 he won the Iowa Fiction Award for his story collection, Igloo Among Palms. His first novel Brittle Star is published by What Books Press. Another novel, A History of Hands, won the Juniper Prize in Fiction, and was subsequently published by the University of Massachusetts Press. More recently, he has focused on writing poetry.