Three Poems

By Larry Thomas

A Room at Night

(vacant house, Terlingua)

is empty.

Its walls are barren,

painted with flat latex.

Its angles are right,

its windows rectangles

free of drapes, shades

or blinds. It looms

in blinding moonglow

as if basking

in its hushed geometry,

stark and spare as art.

Starlight

On moonless nights,

in far West Texas,

it rages down arroyos

of corrugated iron,

brims cisterns with its glare,

and casts shadows

black as crude oil.

The sky hangs low

with its antics, flaring

like the torches of a mob

frantic in pursuit

of a Frankenstein

constellated with cold stars

billions of years dead.

January Light

It trickles to the ground

from the cobalt eastern sky,

slant, tentative,

as if its source of sun is spent,

capitulating to the scourge

of ice and howling wind,

a stubborn candle

casting lengthening shadows,

viscous with the presence

of the night.