Poem Renaissance – R.T. Castleberry

Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20^th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.

Lazarus Backs From His Bier
by R.T. Castleberry
All human beings should try to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber

I live at tomorrow’s tempo,
with a tension smoothed to smiling ease,
the fear I’ll forget my orphan manners,
the change to Daylight Savings Time.
I live as if one parent or another
had sworn over this child,
“He was born for fever and alarm,
born to struggle with repentance and the rent.”

Burnished by sunset’s burning gold,
delirium days pile up
like emptied bottles of Bacardi dark.
Within a tangle of timekeeping
I wear a luminous watch to bed,
set my alarm at AM intervals.
I live by decisions born cold
through restive, morning light.
Deceit is delusion made safe by darkness.

False fall, late September
and the dew dries to silver and disappears.
I can’t trust my weak hands with a razor.
My beard grows Dust Bowl grey and white.
I’ve sold my boots,
my books are scattered in the brush.
I roll my coat under my arm,
take to the woods with soiled sleeves and broken buttons.
I have no image of myself.
I squat back on bare heels
and pitch disorder, a death
to the wide, wasting line of a fading vapor trail.

The poem originally appeared in Parting Gifts.

R.T. Castleberry, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has work in Sangam, Glassworks, Gyroscope Review, Silk Road, and StepAway. Internationally, he's had poetry published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, New Zealand, Portugal, the Philippines, India and Antarctica. His poetry has appeared in the anthologies: You Can Hear the Ocean: An Anthology of Classic and Current Poetry, TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, and Level Land: Poetry For and About the I35 Corridor.

Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print

Previous Renaissance Poets

April Poets

May Poets