PRAISE DILIGENCE
The family asks you to write
the shape of beauty
oh lethal tree
oh cloud
curved like death
shall your lies go on and on?
CAT ON MY LAP
No matter what promises
the world makes
always an end.
The body becomes flowerpot.
The mind in hell.
There must be someone to see.
The temptation is to leave early
while white flowers wave
in the patch out back.
Bio:
Ian Randall Wilson’s fiction and poetry have appeared in many journals including The Alaska Quarterly Review, North American Review and The Gettysburg Review. His two chapbooks, Theme of the Parabola and The Wilson Poems, were published by Hollyridge Press. He has an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College, and is on the fiction faculty at the UCLA Extension. He lives in Los Angeles.