Dave Ruslander

Still Winter



Ignoring the calendar,
spring floats into Virginia.
Tiny fingers of chlorophyll
tickle prehensile lips.

Dandelions wink back at the rising sun,
and the first wisps of pollen float atop the pond
before dithered shadows creep over the fields,
and the first thunderclap of spring
sets the horses loping across their field.

The tarnished sky begins to hammer,
the raised seam roof of my barn.
and the chartreuse branches
of a weeping willow sway.




Swamp Song


Pachelbel's Canon: the spirant sound
of a return to Chickahominy.

Blasts from winter's fowling pieces
still echo in my mind
as March flies in on the
backs of Great Blue herons.
They scrutinize potential
nesting spots.

On an unseen cue, they settle
above the gargling streams
where a whistle pig stands
on a gnarled cypress knee
blowing his frustration
at an impenetrable 20-gauge field fence.




Dave Ruslander lives in rural Virginia where true to the quasi-accurate-sweeping-generalization that southerners are slow, he didn't get around to writing until he was fifty. Since then he's learned to mangle language through poetry, short stories, and one novel. His work has been published in: Poetry SZ, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Green Tricycle, Cenotaph Pocket Edition, Retrozine, Womensbeat, MiPo, Melic Review, and many other fine print and digital publications.




James Garry Christopher Barnes Jennifer Thompson Tom Savage Sam Vaknin Dave Ruslander S. Simpkins Maggie Zhou Maria Claudia Faverio